Monday, April 18, 2005

Dear Friends:

As many of you know, last year I became a shareholder in the New York Times when I purchased a single share in the company. I did this so I would have another way of making my voice heard inside the newsroom on W. 43rd Street.

I attended last year's annual shareholders meeting, with a list of suggestions regarding AIDS and HIV stories in the Times, including a request that the paper donate its vast archive of AIDS coverage to Sister Mary Elizabeth and her free web site, www.aegis.org. Well, after some lobbying at the top levels of the Times, the paper of record recently provided its AIDS archive to Sister and her fantastic site, where the stories are available to all for free.

This year's Times shareholders meeting is on April 26 and I would dearly love to be there to thank Arthur Sulzberger Jr., for sharing the Times' AIDS archive and to press my current concerns about the paper's reporting on AIDS research and epidemiology.

Funds are needed to travel from San Francisco to New York, and if you're supportive of my advocacy work with the Times and want to make a donation, I'd be most appreciative of your generosity.

Donations can be made through the PayPal link at my blog, http://meptrelis.blogspot.com, or by sending a check to me at 132 Clinton Park, Apt. # 1, San Francisco, CA 94103.

Full disclosure: I received thirty-two cents in dividends from my one share in the New York Times in 2004.

Help send this activist to the Times' annual meeting!

Thanks.

Best,
Michael Petrelis
Ph: 415-621-6267

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