TALKING THE WALK
(In response to Travis McKnight’s Oct. 4 article “ASU participates in gay awareness and fundraising.”)
While it's lovely that you covered this event, the way you worded [its description is] completely wrong, and you have missed the whole point. AIDS awareness (e.g., the AIDSWalk) is not solely about “gay awareness and fundraising” or “LGBTQ rights.” It's about AIDS awareness.
The tone your article takes is that AIDS is a gay disease, which it is not. In fact, if your reporter did [his] research correctly [he] would find that heterosexuals (gasp!) can have AIDS, too. In fact, heterosexual women are more likely to contract AIDS, as are injection drug users, and, no, not all of those injection drug users are gay.
The point is, you're sending the wrong message to a somewhat ignorant campus. AIDS can [affect] all of us. It's not just [affecting] gay people. Fire the reporter that wrote this, or hire someone capable of spending more than five minutes researching an event and, most importantly, fix this giant mistake by running an article correcting what your reporter initially wrote.
Take some responsibility for your actions. Until then, I am boycotting State Press and spreading the word to all my friends. I wrote the sex and relationships section for College Times for one year, and let me tell you just how much research matters. The minds of the students at ASU are like sponges. Take advantage of that in a positive way, and fill their heads will real information, not false crap like the stuff you ran in this article.
Jessie Whitfield
Honors College Student
