Urge NPR and Its Member Stations to Promote a Compassionate Holiday Season

Originally Posted: November 6, 2012

Urge NPR and Its Member Stations to Promote a Compassionate Holiday Season

FROM United Poultry Concerns (UPC)

ACTION

Contact NPR and urge them to ENCOURAGE and PROMOTE compassionate holiday dining AND respectful attitudes toward turkeys!

Gary E. Knell, President & CEO
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
http://help.npr.org/npr/includes/customer/npr/custforms/contactus.aspx

AND

Contact your local NPR station:
http://www.npr.org/templates/stations/stations/

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

National Public Radio is excellently positioned to encourage compassionate holiday dining and respectful attitudes toward turkeys if its corporate staff hears from listeners. In addition to contacting NPR’s President & CEO Gary E. Knell, please send an email to your local NPR station with your request for compassionate holiday programming. Click on the above link to send your message, and if you need to find the call letters for your local NPR station, see where it says “Your NPR Station” and click on here for the information you need. You can likely send an email directly to Info@[call letters].org.

Here is a SAMPLE LETTER. Most important is for NPR’s corporate staff and member stations to hear from us.

Dear NPR...

As a dedicated listener to your engaging and informative programs, I am writing respectfully to ask you please to focus your holiday message this year on compassionate turkey-free holiday dining and recipes. I am also asking NPR to refrain from stereotypical turkey jokes at the expense of these amazingly intelligent and sadly maligned and mistreated birds. I ask you please to use your immense public influence to promote informed perceptions of turkeys, educating listeners to respect and appreciate turkeys and all birds who share the world with us. As the media leader in providing first-rate radio programs that appeal to people who thrive on NPR’s informative coverage and creative ideas, I implore you and your staff to help make this year the most compassionate holiday season ever. Thank you for your kind attention to my request. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely, [your name]

UPC sent the following letter to NPR President & CEO Gary E. Knell on Nov. 2, 2012:

Gary E. Knell, President & CEO
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
http://help.npr.org/npr/includes/customer/npr/custforms/contactus.aspx

Dear Mr. Knell:

I am writing to you on behalf of United Poultry Concerns to request that NPR encourage its member stations to promote a compassionate Thanksgiving this year. We were deeply offended by NPR’s Marketplace piece last year on the artificial insemination and masturbation of turkeys.

www.upc-online.org/turkeys/111117npr_turkeys_sexual_assault.html. Assaulting defenseless animals is not amusing, and NPR was wrong to suggest otherwise.

We urge NPR to upgrade its holiday programming this year to reflect and advance the growing compassion that more and more people cherish for the animals who share our planet. We urge NPR to promote compassionate animal-free holiday recipes and local dining opportunities, and to eliminate the callous turkey jokes and jocular tone toward animals that perpetuate ignorance and brutality in people. NPR is ideally suited to promote kindness and thoughtfulness toward animals in its listeners, and we are asking you to do this, please.

Last year’s investigation of a Butterball turkey plant in North Carolina showed for the umpteenth time the horrific cruelty to which turkeys are subjected for needless human consumption. Please expose this reality to NPR listeners instead of hiding it in a false vocabulary of “splendid tables.” www.upc-online.org/turkeys/111229mfa_butterball.html

Please encourage NPR’s member stations to promote delicious turkey-free holiday recipes and to educate their listeners about the abundant opportunities for celebrating life over death this holiday season.

For more information about turkeys and compassionate holiday recipes, please visit our website pages at http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/ and www.upc-online.org/recipes/.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Karen Davis, PhD, President
United Poultry Concerns
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405
Office: (757) 678-7875
Email: Karen@UPC-online.org  

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Thank you for everything you do for animals!