Ingrid Newkirk on PETA’s buzz
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.”
Newkirk on PETA’s lessons for eco-activists
PETA isn’t an environmental group. At least, not in my book.
That’s because, in the eyes of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, animal rights trump environment values whenever the two conflict.
From time to time, I’ve snickered and sneered at the controversial animal-rights advocates over their headline grabs, moral certitude and occasionally shallow grasp of many of the indirect, environmental forces that actually do harm animals. It was the snicker’s turn last week when PETA staffers criticized President Obama for killing a fly.
All that said, I find it difficult to argue against two qualities of the organization:
1) PETA does fight on the side of the angels. I mean, how else can you describe a group of poorly paid people who have given their lives over to empathy and protection of the helpless and abused?
2) And PETA’s damned effective at what it does. While it shouldn’t get all the credit, the group’s high-profile PR campaigns have played a big role in expanding empathy in this country for animals since PETA”s founding in 1980.
So after fly-gate buzzed by, I got to wondering what environmental groups could learn from PETA. To my surprise, Ingrid Newkirk, the group’s founder and president, was the person who return by e-mail with a call. Read more
