Tom Meade - Projo column to end

[JohnR]

Many of you already know this but I wanted to pass along that the column Tom Meade has written for the Providence Journals ahas come to an end, along with other cuts at the paper.

Jim White forwarded this to me late last week and I wanted to get this up over the weekend but missed my window so here goes... Much of this has been discussed in other venues.

DECADES OF FISHING AND HUNTING REPORTS TO END.

I am so furious that I am beside myself and haven't been this mad or upset in quite some time.

I have just learned that Tom Meade's "OUTDOOR COLUMN" will cease to exist after this coming Sunday's last column. He has been assigned other duties and covering fishing as well as hunting will no longer be permitted within the pages of the Providence Journal.
This decision to cancel that column or the editor who decided to take this action, had the unmitigated gall to bring decades of outdoor reporting to an end, to the second largest circulated paper in New England.

Our children and our grandchildren will never know what it is like to read about the outdoors in their local paper, or ever have or get the opportunity to be recognized by their peers or for any accomplishments that they may earn or enjoy ever again and never get to see their name in print.

Maybe the Journal would rather see our sons and daughter's photos in weekly Police Rap sheets, or report on their gang involvement or drug activities and how we've failed our youth, so everyone better go and slit your writs for being such bad and uncaring parents.

After all why would you want to read about your son, daughter, or grandchild catching his/her first big fish or shooting his/her first big buck? It must seem more logical to those at the Journal to see them instead being lead away in handcuffs, or placed in Police cruisers, what better light to show our kids in than that??

Or maybe we should have all our children just sit in a corner and hum Zen tunes, while drinking the Kool-Aid thats been prepared for them to keep them in line with the political correctness of our new, super, caring society.

I know what that has meant for my son when he was growing up, as well as my grandson, who's only seven, and for many friends who's son's and daughters were written about and now will no longer see or have that opportunity for recognition by those who love and enjoy the same outdoor activities as they do.

At this time it is not known if the weekly fishing reports will be continued come spring time, but I'd have to say that the chances of it happening are likely slim to none.

In my opinion this smacks of left-wing- anti hunting and fishing agenda's, seeing that Tom Meade has been forbidden to write anything anymore about hunting, and in the eyes of those who worship that warped ideology, fishing is considered a blood sport as well. So the likely hood that hunting related features are no longer permitted, so will go the fishing features as well.

This brings to an end the decades of outdoor coverage from Staff Carrol, Lester Boyd, and now Tom Meade. It is a sad state of affairs indeed that one or two people can make this kind of decision with little or no concern for those who follow that column religiously.

This in not a matter of whether you like or dislike what Tom Meade writes about. Its more a matter of free speech, and freedom of speech as well as an out-right attack on the outdoor fishing and hunting community by those who are in power within the Journal.

The very first thing that I personally will do tomorrow morning is to call the Journal and cancel my weekly as well as my Sunday paper. I absolutely refuse to support a newspaper that has little or no regard for what I do, what I have done all my life, what my family has done, and what my friends with me have enjoyed since the day I was born.

How dare they take away our only public voice, like we were some sort of lower or second class citizen. How dare they totally disregard, mine as well as our right to have a voice from a fair and un-biased journalist. After all, criminals are still getting plenty of press, as well as child molesters, bank robbers, murderers, and the rest of our sick,wonderful society. While we get pushed or shoved off the pier on a high outgoing tide.

One thing they won't get from me any longer is my money. Stick that in your wallet and see how it feels. Maybe if everyone canceled their Journal subscriptions, the warped, demented minds there just might loose a few bucks from those they chose to toss under the bus during rush hour traffic. Besides, about the only thing that was left worth reading in the Journal was the Sunday Outdoor Column and the weekly fishing reports. Pretty much everything else after that stunk.

Capt Jim White