To the editor:

First, let list me list some points I learned at Iowa State in composition class:

1. Consider your audience and who will read it.

2. Capture the attention of the audience

3. Leave the audience thinking after they read a written piece.

In your most recent propaganda blast of Alternative Relationships Awareness Week or “Gay Week” as the masses call it, you were very successful in capturing the attention of your audience, and you left the audience thinking after they read articles and glanced at pictures.

Props to you for doing that. However, your people writing for the advancement of the LGBTAA agenda forgot who their audience was.

Let me guess that about 80 percent (this may be slightly more or less) of the campus is straight and doesn’t care to see drag queens, dudes kissing and articles about being sensitive to LGBT issues.

This failure to consider your audience can and will have a negative effect on your readers whether you realize it or not. Not only will you lose respectability among your readers, you put your credibility as a real news source on the line.

Obviously, many undergraduates have been angered by recent articles and pictures, but think about the largest group associated with Iowa State — your alumni. These are the men and women who give millions of dollars to you clowns so you can continue your education in state of the art facilities.

Now put your so-called staff in the shoes of John and Mary Q Public, both alumni, with money to donate to Iowa State and a son or daughter trying to decide where to go to college.

Now, I may be wrong, but if they are reading your online edition of the Daily, like many alumni do, I would imagine their views of Iowa State are changing each and every day. They may be more reluctant to give to Iowa State or to send a child there.

That may be “homophobic,” but it is reality. With foolish articles about Drag Queen Pageants and pictures depicting a lifestyle of less than 5 percent of the nation, many alumni would think the university of higher learning is turning into a liberal, left wing school of debauchery.

Where it can be argued that someone or group is always going to be angry at some bit of news, I would imagine there were not too many people thrilled to see two dudes making out.

I am not a proponent of censorship, don’t get me wrong, but I have always believed in using the proper channels to spread the message.

I, like many other individuals in the “real” world, would agree a newspaper that bears the Iowa State University name is not the correct channel.

I am shocked sometimes thinking about how much world and state news that never made the Daily while I was at Iowa State.

To my knowledge, the majority of undergraduates do not watch the 10 o’clock news nor do they have a subscription to the Des Moines Register or Newsweek. What they know is what they read in your flaky tabloid.

Memo to undergraduates: Go to the library or online and check out some real, credible, daily news publications.

You will be surprised to see the issues you will face when you graduate/drop out. These are real issues that you will face every day as professionals and parents.

This is one of the best ways you can educate yourself while in college. Plus it makes you feel smart when you reluctantly read the Daily.

In conclusion, I challenge the Daily staff to present issues that your reading audience can relate to and prepare them for life after college: tuition hikes, employment, housing, taxes, immigration, the presidential elections, education, philanthropy, along with the many other national and world issues we face each day.

In response to an argument that I see brewing, I would agree gay issues are part of the “real” world and should be presented in the proper context. However, showing pictures of drag queens and guys kissing is a waste of space that could be used for more noteworthy news.

Use your publication to educate, not to flaunt alternative lifestyles.

Memo to ISU Alumni Foundation: Don’t call me when it comes time to collect for donations. You can send my donation envelope to the Daily and the LGBTAA

Memo to ISU Administration: Do yourself a favor and take your name off of the Daily. I would be embarrassed to be represented by such a piece of trash.

Christopher Rickert

Alumnus

Kansas City, Mo.