TOW #22: "Good Riddance, Fred Phelps" by David Von Drehle

The passing of Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, five days ago
  resulted in media and Internet fanfare.

On March 19th, Fred Phelps, one of the most infamous figures in American culture passed away at the age of eighty-four. His death was marked by Internet celebrations, extensive news coverage, and numerous obituaries, all detailing the history and hatefulness of Phelps's congregation, the Westboro Baptist Church. However, in "Good Riddance, Fred Phelps", an opinion piece featured in Time Magazine, David Von Drehle successfully argues that Phelps stood out not just because he was a fanatically religious, homophobic bigot, but because he had a desperate thirst for publicity and was skilled at getting it.
One of the most distinct features of Von Drehle's piece is his hostile tone. The tagline is "He was the kind of person no one wanted to be around", which grabs the reader's attention. Von Drehle opens the article with the words, "Fred Phelps, a colossal jerk, died... after a long life in which even his few admirable achievements... stemmed from a deeply disagreeable personality." He says the Westboro Baptist Church was an example of "dishonesty and shabbiness" and that Phelps' genius for publicity is "the reason not to despair over a life like Fred Phelps's." Von Drehle's tone makes it quite obvious to readers that even though he may be acclaiming Phelps's ability to get attention, he still believes that Phelps was a horrible human being.
In order to prove that Phelps proved himself to be an apt attention-seeker, Von Drehele describes the manner in which he did this. He talks about how using the word "church", making signs that said God, not Phelps, hated homosexuals, and bringing his family to protests made people identify Phelps and his followers with other religious conflicts and "gave the impression of numbers". The intensity of Phelps's beliefs, Von Drehle argues, made him seem all the more shocking and worthy of media coverage. To demonstrate the effectiveness of Phelps's efforts, Von Drehle mentions his own experience in the media: "... I watched as one journalist after another took Phelps's bait." It is clear from all of these examples that Phelps made garnering publicity into an art form, and that this set him apart from all of the other run-of-the-mill bigots that preach hateful messages.


Article link: http://time.com/32564/fred-phelps-westboro-baptist-obituary/