Opposition to 'meatout' lacks forward thinking

In response to an opinion in Penn State's Digital Collegian that was itself a response to the Great American Meatout, I sent a letter to the editor that I also posted here earlier this week.

The letter was published today, and I have to say that I approve of the headline they gave my piece.

I did start out quite a bit harsher than I usually do, but if you read the original opinion, you'll see why. If Hanelly had actually taken a moment to visit a Meatout event on his own campus, he might have learned enough to have written a more informed piece.

I'd also like to add that creative editing removed the following from my original letter, making it come off more antagonistic than written: "expecting something fresh and intelligent from the Penn senior." The last part was changed to "him," as if I knew the guy, when really the point is that you'd expect a senior in media studies at Penn State to offer something fresher and more intelligent than what he did in his published opinion. I'm a bit disappointed that the paper made this edit, as it surely wasn't due to space constraints. Perhaps they were concerned it could come across as a slam against the school?

I wonder how many Digital Collegian readers are going to ask themselves why some guy in Los Angeles is reading their paper and writing them a letter, but we can't just limit ourselves to writing the editors of our own local papers. We can reach people all over the world with accurate, animal-friendly information if we spend just a few minutes gathering our thoughts to craft a well-reasoned letter to the editor of any news outlet, all thanks to the internet.

Categories: meatout | letters to the editor | letter writing | advocacy