PETA Hits Major Papers With ‘America: It’s Time to Move Away From Meat’ Ad Blitz

As COVID-19 Spreads, Full-Page Ads Appeal to Consumers: ‘Eat as if Everyone’s Life Depends on It, Because It Does’

For Immediate Release:
May 14, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Swine flu, bird flu, SARS, and now COVID-19 have all been linked to confining animals for consumption—but that point is often missed in conversations about preventing future pandemics. To put animals on the table, in the right way, PETA has hit The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and other major dailies with full-page ads that urge people to think about the filth and cruelty inside factory farms and slaughterhouses—and consider being part of the solution by going vegan. Copies of the ads are available here.

“No one needs meat,” the ads underscore. “Eat as if everyone’s life depends on it, because it does.“

“From swine flu to SARS to COVID-19, it’s as clear as the gloved hand in front of your masked face that eating animals is killing us,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s ads directly tell the public that it’s about more than social distancing and hand sanitizer—it’s about what, or who, we’re putting on our plates.”

The Hill, the Washington Examiner, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and The Seattle Times also ran PETA’s ads, and others are pending approval. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune rejected a version that ran in the Los Angeles Times. Other papers that rejected PETA’s ads include the Toronto Star, the National Review, and the New York Post.

To help everyone go vegan, PETA is offering free vegan starter kits and a list of vegan-friendly restaurant chains, many of which are still offering takeout during the pandemic, among other resources.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.