Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My challenge to State News

It seems like all of Columbus is in a hurry today to get around and get stuff done. An hour before our own parking lot usually fills up, I already was barely able to get a spot. This busyness includes me today, as I try to catch up on blog ideas I had to postpone yesterday in the stead of a funeral and an awards reception.

I'd like to start off today with a challenge to the State News. I know that basketball season is taking the highlight, including Delvon Roe's double performance yesterday which is remarkable and wonderful, but was it necessary to close comments to specific past articles such as the ongoing animal welfare debate? The closing of comments is just one more example of your unwillingness to allow free speech and expression of the opinions of your readers.

Per the comment of one your readers on the site, I had been searching for documentation from their own opinion leaders to contradict the argument presented. Sure enough, HSUS themselves discuss in their chicken cage welfare paper (28 pages with over a hundred references which I bet they thought nobody would read) the fact that chicken pecking behavior was found to be genetic. Thus, the cannibalism debated on the State News article is in fact present in most flocks, regardless of the housing systems which were suggested superior in discussion. So if you don't take it from me, take it from your own and realize that there is really a reason we call it a "pecking order". Find your place in it and shut your mouth.

Thus stems my challenge to State News. You have a few good writers on your staff who have shown willingness to support the media underdogs. Let them explore the truth and be what you should've been all along since you're supported by all kinds of readers; objectively report and leave subjectivism to the editorial column which should be open to both sides of an argument.

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