"Hunting may seem a cruel and heartless activity to animal-rights activists and many Americans. But hunters are trying to show they can be compassionate people too. A growing number of American hunters are donating part of their bounty each year to people who need it most, the poor and the homeless, through nationwide campaigns like Hunters for the Hungry, which delivers game meat to local food banks and shelters. In Georgia, where the group was founded 15 years ago, more than 1,000 hunters delivered 5,000 pounds of meat in 2006, making 25,000 meals. Nationwide, the group is on track to deliver its one-millionth meal in December."
Let's look at these crucial opening sentences:
Hunting may seem a cruel and heartless activity to animal-rights activists and many Americans. The author uses two adjectives - "cruel and heartless" gives her two bites at the apple, reinforcing the wickedness of hunters. Ending with "...and many Americans" reinforces an impression that this is the majority opinion, implying without saying "most".
But hunters are trying to show they can be compassionate people too. Too? Why "too"? Meaning hunters can be compassionate alongside being "cruel and heartless" or meaning that hunters can try to approach the compassion levels of "animal-rights activists and many Americans"? And "trying to show" implies that they haven't succeeded - that the jury is still out. One gets the image of cruel, heartless hunters engaged in some clever scheme to slap compassionate-looking whitewash on their underlying evil.
The article goes on to give the animal-rightists yet another crack at the hunters, but at this point the damage has been done. There can be little doubt that the author is leaning personally towards the "cruel and heartless" angle - and seems to be struggling to bring a biased person's impression of "balance" to the piece, through a sort of rote he-said/she-said formula.
Writing like this makes me glad I don't subscribe to TIME any more.
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