Article in College Newspaper upsets campus

[Eyoma]

A few weeks back I came across an article by a guy called John Petroski who wrote editorials for his college newpaper. The article was titled 'Rape only hurts if you fight it' and was a satirical piece on the whole issue of rape. The article recieved massive response on the campus, and quickly spread through the internet, gaining a major group of people (foremost women from what I can understand) that demanded Petroskis and the editor in cheif immidiate resigns. The article in question was taken of the newspapers site and Petroski has given his apologies to all he has offended through both a "pressconference" and a open letter to the public.

Link to a copy of Petroski's article
Link to Petroski's Open Letter

My questions for debate is the following:
What did YOU think of the article? Is it a vulgar piece only written in order for him to gain a few minutes of fame, or is it a missinterperted satirical piece that recieved the wrong kind of attention?
Was it right for people to demand Petroski's resign due to their dislike for his article?

 

[RightinNYC]

A few weeks back I came across an article by a guy called John Petroski who wrote editorials for his college newpaper. The article was titled 'Rape only hurts if you fight it' and was a satirical piece on the whole issue of rape. The article recieved massive response on the campus, and quickly spread through the internet, gaining a major group of people (foremost women from what I can understand) that demanded Petroskis and the editor in cheif immidiate resigns. The article in question was taken of the newspapers site and Petroski has given his apologies to all he has offended through both a "pressconference" and a open letter to the public.

Link to a copy of Petroski's article
Link to Petroski's Open Letter

My questions for debate is the following:
What did YOU think of the article? Is it a vulgar piece only written in order for him to gain a few minutes of fame, or is it a missinterperted satirical piece that recieved the wrong kind of attention?
Was it right for people to demand Petroski's resign due to their dislike for his article?

I think its pretty poorly written and that the guy should have realized that this is exactly what would happen, but that its pretty clear he didn't mean to hurt people with that.

As a side note, I'm currently on a huge kick against idiotic reactionary leftist students. There's a huge uproar brewing at my school over a planned College Republican "Find the Illegal Immigrant" event, and the idiotic arguments from the protesters are already more than I can handle. I'll post an article about it once it hits the papers tomorrow. Ugh.

 

[rathi]

Its a really bad attempt at satire. He clearly fails to understand the genre. Defending eating babies is funny, while rape is not. He should be asked to resign, but simply because he demonstrated such incompetence. Satire requires that you know your audience and plan your jokes accordingly. He clearly failed to do that.

 

[talloulou]

Actually the subject and spin on it could have been funny but the tone and writing wasn't well thought out or good. A certain degree of talent is necessary to pull a piece like that off.

On the up side his apology letter was, in my opinion, rather well written. The tone in that piece was spot on. :mrgreen:

 

[Eyoma]

Its a really bad attempt at satire. He clearly fails to understand the genre. Defending eating babies is funny, while rape is not. He should be asked to resign, but simply because he demonstrated such incompetence. Satire requires that you know your audience and plan your jokes accordingly. He clearly failed to do that.

Wait, do you think he's failed with the satiriacl tone of the piece OR the subject itself? When you think of the eating babies I persume you're thinking of Jonathan Swift's A modest proposal and even though we these days can apreciate the genious of his writing I can promise you a large number of people back then DID NOT.
I personally didn't have anything major against Petroski's article, altough he's not nearly as talented in his presentation as Swift, and I do agree that some part could have been re-written. (Take the ugly women and bad boys part for example). I think it's truly sad it recieved the negative attention it did and that so few understood it.

 

[mikhail]

The thing is he has just sat around thinking "whats the most outragous thing i can think of" unfortunitly its not very clever at all or funny.

heres an example of how its done properly

YouTube - Brass Eye clip from 2001 Pedo Special