Ingrid Newkirk on PETA’s buzz

June 29, 2009 by shelter
Filed under: Hollywood and Co. 

This week’s Media Mayhem column at the Mother Nature Network:

A fly. Seven days after President Obama swatted the sucker, I googled “PETA” and “fly” together. One-thousand-one-hundred-and-eighteen news articles showed up. The first wave of mentions was speculative, as in: “The Onion ought to write that PETA’s upset at Obama.” The next wave was disbelieving, as in: “This may sound to you like a headline from the Onion: PETA’s upset at Obama.”

A handful of writers got past the visceral reaction: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals again displayed its unerring talent for drawing attention to the cause of animal rights. In this case, PETA didn’t even mean to draw the attention. A staff blogger happened to mention in a short post about “flygate” that “human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.”

Overblown headlines buzzed around the globe like angry hornets. “Obama’s fly-swatting incident bugs PETA.” “PETA miffed at President Obama’s fly execution.” “PETA condemns Obama for murdering innocent fly.”

“It took on a life of its own,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk told me in an interview. “But we benefited, because we did lots of [talk] shows that talked about the government pest control programs for coyotes and starlings, and more people just became aware of [animal injustices] they hadn’t thought about before.”
Read the rest of the column at the Mother Nature Network.
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