To the Editor:
Dick Lyons, president of Cellular One, misses the point when he claims that the “Death Row Ad” is “not about the death penalty.” No one has ever accused them of taking a political position; the issues are appropriateness and sensitivity. During each of the three conversations I had with him, he remained intransigent: it is a successful ad, therefore, we use it. That cavalier attitude is indicative of an organization which values profits uber alles. Corporations such as Cellular One have not only a responsibility to their shareholders to provide a good return, but a public duty to maintain standards of quality higher than the bare legal and regulatory minimum. Its two official communications with me were through its agency, Publicis-USA. When I responded to the first one (which said “… it is being phased out”) positively, the second one arrived to tell me that I had misunderstood the first one, and the “phase out” was to occur as a natural course of an ad campaign. The first message, however, does acknowledge that we in this country have “the freedom to speak up and disagree without fear of reprisals.” In this case, we have only just begun.
Charles Kafoure
Indiana Citizens to Abolish Capital Punishment
