Fighting That Old Devil Rumor by Sandra Salmans

959 Words2 Pages

An article from October 1982 “Fighting That Old Devil Rumor” by Sandra Salmans from the Saturday Evening Post talks about what Procter and gamble did to stop a rumor about them that would not go away back in 1982. What is the Purpose of this article though. The purpose is to show how fast rumors can spread, and what they can do to a company. It also shows that the company will fight back in order to keep a positive image, and to help dispense the rest of the rumor. If they are trying to dispense the rest of the rumor they are probably trying to reach adults who are 25 years and older , that are also married. In this respect of the attended audience this article succeeds. Salmans main points throughout this article get through to the intended audience, but more than that what Salmans says throughout the article helps as well. With those two points in mind that is what I use throughout this paper to analyze the article. One of the merits going for the article is when it provides an example of this rumor situation happening to another company. Then later on in the article when Procter and Gamble take charge and start suing people Salmans tells exactly who the people are. Back at the beginning of the article Salmans talks about all the different companies that Procter and Gamble own showing you how severe the situation was.
This article starts by talking about the rumor, and how it is affecting the company. After a certain point in time they could no longer keep devoting resources to the rumor so they entered a legal suit. They went to court with the first people that they thought they had enough evidence against. After that point the rumor died down but did not completely go away leaving the company to question how they could reach...

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... the rumor. In December of 1981 they received 1,152 queries, about the rumor, and then by “June, however, the center was receiving more than 15,000 queries monthly”. In just a matter of months the Rumor had skyrocketed, and this information shows just how big the rumor actually was.
After reading this article, and after analyzing it I agree with what Procter and Gamble did to eraser this rumor, and with Salmans argument. Salmans showed both sides well enough that I believe that this was a big rumor. The article also contained enough evidence that the rumor was false that if the target audience was indeed reading this article. They would be convinced that it was in fact just a rumor, and that Procter and Gamble were indeed not satanists.

Works Cited

Behrens, Laurence, and Leonard J. Rosen. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. Boston: Pearson, 2013. Print.

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