Peaceful Prairie Snubbed

Michele Alley-Grubb from Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary updated me yesterday about her purchase of ad space for "Milk Comes From Grieving Mothers" and "Can You Tell the Difference?" (between battery and free-range hens).

After Michele spent dozens of hours placing and negotiating the ads, the contact person at Yoga Journal said:

"I am so sorry but we are unable to take your ad.  It is a very strong message and we carry a lot of dairy/cheese advertisers plus only a small % of our readers are vegan and dairy-free."

Perhaps if readers of Yoga Journal knew more about dairy and egg production, a larger percentage of them would become vegans. How are they supposed to make that decision if no one is willing to educate them? Note that the magazine’s publisher also publishes Vegetarian Times, Better Nutrition and Optimal Wellness, and use phrases like: "22.8 million people say they largely follow a vegetarian-inclined diet." Largely? Inclined?

I’m not surprised that the magazine didn’t run the ads–I’m shocked they so enthusiastically led her to believe that they would run them, thereby wasting her valuable time. She’s saving lives every day, while they’re collecting ad revenue and kowtowing to animal exploiters, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

The other magazine that was going to run the ads, which I had never heard of, was PINK, which is geared toward successful business women, ages 25-54, who control the bulk of $3.3 trillion in consumer spending. The contact person was passionate about placing the ads and they had given Michele a great price. Moments before the deadline, Michele received this message:

"As much as we would love to help you get your message out there, our sales department has determined that we can not run these ads."

In an e-mail to me, Michele wrote:

The truth is terrifying,especially to those whose complicity in unimaginable abuse is exposed so honestly. They don’t realize it, of course, but their reaction to the ads, prove our point of just how effective these ads are. They have also simultaneously insulted the intelligence and maturity of their "empowered professional women" readership. If they think that the readers are too soft headed to process the honesty and compelling presentation of this subject matter,  shame on them.

Of course, Michele is already exploring other options, and if you have any ideas, pass them along. Finally, Michele wrote:

All liberation struggles throughout history have been met with ignorance, fear, aggression, and resistance, but the abolitionists will prevail.  No matter what they do to us, the animals’ experience is so unacceptable, that we cannot ever let these cowards stop us from getting the truth to the masses.

I’ll keep you informed of how we decide to proceed – and we WILL proceed!

If you’d like to send an articulate e-mail to Yoga Journal, please, please be kind. Here’s the page you can use to access the e-mail form at PINK. Publishers and editors need to know that they are doing their readers a disservice by intentionally preventing them from getting information that might dramatically change the way they live their lives for the better, in addition to saving the lives of nonhuman animals. It might be an uncomfortable message for them to hear, but it is a necessary one.