Let me begin by stating that body shaming is never right. It is absolutely disgusting to make a person feel less human for not fitting society’s established description of “normal.”

On Tuesday, The East Carolinian ran an opinion column titled “Campus Cookies shames customers,” by Collyn Sheaffer. The piece appears to be an adaptation of her elaborate public Facebook post where she details her disgust over the company’s response to her complaints.

Before jumping to conclusions, I actually looked into things. Campus Cookies has a marketing team that produces these boxes with a unique flair in bulk while the shop is closed. The employees then use them when the store opens. This way, there is no wasting time during the bustling late-night hours. These pre-made boxes are not targeted to individuals, they are used in the order they were produced.

The message was simple: shove cookies in your face! They are delicious, warm and fresh, so they want you eating many and coming back for more. Why would a marketing team body shame customers if such an act would actually discourage patronage to the store?

Campus Cookies apologized to Sheaffer for the trouble and said they would be reaching out to the store. That is a thoughtful, adequate course of action. Sheaffer could not be satisfied. She decided to share her plight on Facebook—more than a week after and one day before her piece was published in The East Carolinian.

On Jan. 31, 2016, Sheaffer tweeted (on her public Twitter profile, which has since been made private and I have been blocked from viewing,) “The fat and ugly girl from grease got fatter and uglier #GreaseLive.” This was not Sheaffer’s first tweet or retweet demeaning body image. On at least three different occasions in 2015, Sheaffer tweeted or retweeted posts making negative comments about physical appearance in regards to body weight. I find it appalling that such a staunch activist would post the very shaming material she decries.

As for The East Carolinan, what happened to real journalism? Since Ryan Clancy took over as Editor-in-Chief at the beginning of the academic year, it appears that every opinion column was penned by either an opinion columnist or a guest columnist. Also since this time, all other pieces published to the opinion page were either from the opinion board, the Editor-in-Chief, the opinion editor (Tyler Kelbaugh), or in the form of letters to the editor.

How was such a poorly constructed piece, clearly lacking research, allowed to be published? This is clearly a hit piece. If people truly wanted to have a discussion about body image and shaming, there are other ways to go about it than publishing a half-baked opinion column, written by the News Chief, utilizing a purely nonsense claim. Why are staff writers given opinion columns? How did Kelbaugh and Clancy not realize the implications this could have in terms of perceived journalistic integrity? Is this newspaper staff at all concerned Campus Cookies employees could very well lose their jobs because of the negative attention Sheaffer brought to Campus Cookies over her overreaction?

Reporting must be fair, unbiased, and should avoid conflicts of interest. The East Carolinian fails in all of these categories. Sheaffer and The East Carolinian owe Campus Cookies an apology.

(1) comment

j3st3r

Bravo. Well said.

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