Letters to the Editor

PETA article unfair to organization

My eyes started to wonder in class one morning, and then I was reminded why I stopped reading The Collegian a semester ago. Strewn on the floor was the front page, the headline said “Visions of animal rights,” but the only vision in The Collegian was a picture of a person standing behind a table. Photo editor, you’re fired.

Later, the sub-headline reads: “PETA comes to campus with their “Animal Liberation” exhibit, claims plight of animals equivalent to slavery.” News Editor, you’re fired. Such bias from a seemingly “objective” newspaper should not go unmentioned.

Katrina Garcia’s use of the word their in the sub-headline effectively distances the reader from PETA. By using their, Garcia labels PETA as those people who are separate from us, they are the others and their struggle is not ours, it is theirs.

Later, Garcia puts Animal Liberation into quotes. This is a typical use of quotations around a term with which the author does not agree. Consider the following examples: U.S. to bring so-called “Democracy” to Iraq. Those fools call their work “art.”

Later, Garcia’s use of the word claim demonstrates that she does not agree with PETA’s assertion of animal slavery.

Note the differences: She was raped. She said she was raped. She claimed she was raped.

If perhaps The Collegian editors would actually edit rather than abuse their positions of power by pontificating in the Opinion section, then they might actually gain a bit of credibility.

Eric Wilderson
Linguistics senior

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