Open Letter to San Jose Mercury News

pstrongPNN Staffwriter T.J. Johnston finds full-page ad tasteles/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN Staff/p pOPEN LETTER TO SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWSbr /br / From: TJ Johnstonbr /br / cc: United Way Silicon Valleybr /br / Re: Full page ad for September 11 Fund/p pTo Whom It May Concern:br / Are you out of your cotton picking minds?!?/p pI finished the sports section on your Wed. Sept. 19 edition and gave a cursory glance to yet another charity ad citing the catastrophes of Sept. 11. This particular charity is the United Way Silicon Valley./p pThis ad trained my eyes towards the captions on top, "Remember. Resolve. Rebuild." Beneath this alliteration, there's an AP photo of the Manhattan skyline on that unforgettable day, with a quote from George W. Bush extolling the American character on the corner (where blue sky is still visible). The sulfuric emanations resembled something more out of Inferno than contemporary New York City. And below the Dante-esque depiction (and above the mail-in receipts), a large caption stating a plea to help. In smaller type, there's the requisite information on how to make this possible./p pi"For a donation of $25 or more we can, at your request, send you a 14" X 24" color poster of this dramatic photograph taken in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. All money collected, with the exception of poster shipping fees, will be donated to the United Way Silicon Valley September 11th Fund."/i/p pWHO DO YOU THINK HASN'T HAD IMAGES OF THE TWIN TOWERS LIKE THIS ONE IMBEDDED IN THEIR MEMORY BANKS? Bubba, who happened to be abducted by extraterrestrials at the time ("Hey Zorgaj, you reckon somethin' blew up down Noo Yolk way?")?/p pWhy are you offering this picture in the first place---as a memento? If a picture is worth a thousand words, we've already been supplied with a Library-of-Congress amount of material. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle!/p pWho, exactly, is the inspiration behind your ad campaign---Jerry Lewis? At least when his "kids" are put on annual display (pathetic as they seem), I know well enough not to watch TV on Labor Day./p pNow, I like tasteless jokes as much as the next guy, but you've crossed the line. My mind conjures "what-ifs" for other donation drives: the Simon Wiesenthal Center offering photos of scenic Dachau, NAMBLA giving to donors CDs of their favorite boy-bands, Planned Parenthood hawking posters of Joan Crawford (now maybe that last one is offensive, but serves to illustrate my point)./p pBut then I remembered it's for the United Way, an organization famous for being top-heavy. All nonprofits must have overhead, I understand that. But if they actually paid for space, money that could benefit the families of deceased and missing people is being pissed down the toilet (the same applies for the cyberspace on your online counterpart, bayarea.com)./p pYour ad represents not only a lack of sensitivity, but a gulf of disconnect between the United Way's team of professional fundraisers and your would-be supporters. I'd advise your advertising "geniuses" to remember, resolve, and rethink future ad campaigns if you want to appeal to present and potential supporters./p pP.S. If you're moronic enough to hit me for a contribution, I'm suing your collective ass.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p