4.01.2007
Dead Witches Don't Deserve Page One!
Two weeks ago, prominent Salem Witch Shawn Poirier (High Priest of the Salem Tradition of Witchcraft) died of a heart attack at the age of 40. Local paper The Standard-Times covered Poririer's death in a front-page feature including photos of mourning Witches. It seems this sympathetic coverage of a local figure crossed a line for some readers. The paper has published a letter to the editor in their opinion section chastising the paper for giving premium space to a dead Witch.
"In my opinion, this type of news is something that would have been more appropriately issued forth in a trade magazine or newsletter for witches and proponents of the occult, and does not merit front-page exposure of this magnitude in a mainstream newspaper such as The Standard-Times. Whatever this man might have been to his family, friends and followers, I can certainly respect that, but to have this particular paper display all of this as front-page, headline news, in my view, is inappropriate ... In my view, more discretion should have been exercised here by the editor as to how and where an article such as this should have appeared in The Standard-Times."
One wonders at the backlash that would result if a local Witch objected to a front-page feature on a dead Christian clergyman (Should such news be kept to appropriate "trade magazines"?). Was this a representative letter that deserved airing in print, or was it some misguided editor's latest stab at what passes for journalistic "balance" these days. In either case, shame on the paper for choosing this story to give space to a crank letter.
Labels: Paganism, Salem, Shawn Poririer, Witchcraft
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