Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

I attended a breakfast meeting yesterday at Tucson Newspapers where candidates and politicos could hear from the editorial staffs of both newspapers and, oh yeah, meet their advertising staff too.

An interesting thing for me was when the editors of the papers went over their rules regarding letters to the editor. Some may remember that the Citizen had been taken to task over a letter from Dr. Emery Wright that advocated the summary execution of Muslims. Although courts found that the Citizen had the right to publish this letter, the storm over this case may have prompted them to clarify their letters policy. Michael Chihak, the Citizen’s publisher spoke and went over their letter policy, especially in regard to candidates. We all got a copy of a column he wrote back in February that reiterated their letters policy:

Candidates are bound by the same rules for letters to the editor as are others - one letter every 30 days; maximum length 250 words; no personal attacks; no libelous statements; all must be signed with full names and a way for us to contact the writer; all letters are subject to our editing.

I understand the policy. If the idea of letters to the editor is to prompt debate, then the last thing you want is a food fight.

However, I asked a question: if there is such a concern about letters to the editor, why no apparent concern about the on-line comments section?

Their answer: free speech!

Admitedly, on-line comments are harder to police than letters to the editor. But, frankly, this is too smug and easy an answer. If free speech is a defense, or even creates an obligation to publish anything online, it begs the question, why not publish every letter?

Of course they don’t, and there are good reasons for that. The right to “free speech” doesn’t obligate them to publish everything, right?

They also stated that there were safeguards, and that they have taken down particularly offensive comments and personal attacks. When I got the chance, I went back and checked on a couple of comments that I was interested in to see if they had been taken down. They hadn’t.

For example, a comment attached to an article about, of all things, parking fees at the Main Library, generated this wonderful contribution to the public discussion from Steven M., a comment unfortunately typical of the direction of the comments on this article:

Greedy Bastards! I guess I won’t be taking my daughter to the Main Library anymore. “One of the great scams” What!?!? One the ‘greatest scams’ EVER is Richard Elias being appointed supervisor by his departing lover Raul Grijalva. That is the biggest SCAM….ever. The Pima County Board of Supervisors appointing an ethics panel–with a $95,000 budget — was just retarded (and just another one of the BIGGEST scams I have ever seen). Is Richard Alias [sic] GAY??? There is nothing wrong with that, but gay-dar readings are off the charts. I was just wondering if he was GAY.

Frankly, given the writing in some of the comments on this issue, I wonder if the writers spend too much time in libraries anyhow.

The interesting part about this is that this was only the second comment; this wasn’t a long discussion that degenerated into this. I’ve seen this with other commentaries too, and it has unfortunately become de rigeur on the Star’s and Citizen’s boards.

Russ Dove’s comments where he refers to Congressman Jim Kolbe as “tail-banger Jim” are still up on an article which doesn’t even mention Kolbe. Say, what is it about these guys going on about homosexuality all the time?

I’d like freewheeling discussion, but there needs to be some sort of control. Political speech is useless when the best response is in the category of “so’s your mom.” If it can’t be published in a letter to the editor, it shouldn’t be published as a comment, especially when the name calling contributes nothing to the argument.

NB - Okay…I took a few personal shots. Yeah, I know.