3/31/2003
Watch what you e-mail
The estimable Charley Stough, reporter, editor, columnist, former Usenet guide, raconteur, karaoke contender, novelist and chief copyboy of Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild (BONG) recently put his BONG newsletter on the Web in blog form, calling it Newsgorilla.
He noted the outrageous story of a Texas reporter being peremptorily fired for firing back a sharply worded e-mail at a group of smug frat-boy campus conservatives. (Scroll down to the bold heading SOMEBODY TOLD DADDY.) (See also the Fort Worth Weekly's report.)
This is, sadly, part of trend of disciplining reporters and columnists for their e-mails to readers. Last summer Managing Editor Rosemary Armao had to resign from the Sarasota Herald-Trib over her e-mail response to a Katherine Harris profile. (She quickly found another job.)
The profile was something of a puff piece which treated Harris as the congressman-elect and barely condescended to mention that there is another party that had the temerity to run a candidate. When a Democratic reader complained, she explained the facts of life to him -- Dems aren't numerous enough to matter here; Katherine is a celebrity and the paper will afford her celebrity treatment; no, I won't vote for her, either; we're not going to pretend we don't already know the outcome of the election.
Last January, Tallahassee Democrat political writer Bill Cotterell was suspended for a week for a harsh e-mail he sent to somebody who was part of an orchestrated e-mail campaign complaining about a Doug Marlette cartoon. (A cartoon the Democrat never actually printed, mind you.) And the managing editor apologized -- yet again -- for the cartoon . (That nice Mary Ann Melone at the St. Pete Times used this to defend free speech at newspapers. Good for her.)
Snotty campus conservatives need to be ridiculed while they are still capable of personal change or they will grow into dysfunctional adults unable to cope the world outside of Rush Limbaugh/Clear Channel radio. The fired reporter was doing them a favor.
Sheesh, everyone's so sensitive these days.
He noted the outrageous story of a Texas reporter being peremptorily fired for firing back a sharply worded e-mail at a group of smug frat-boy campus conservatives. (Scroll down to the bold heading SOMEBODY TOLD DADDY.) (See also the Fort Worth Weekly's report.)
This is, sadly, part of trend of disciplining reporters and columnists for their e-mails to readers. Last summer Managing Editor Rosemary Armao had to resign from the Sarasota Herald-Trib over her e-mail response to a Katherine Harris profile. (She quickly found another job.)
The profile was something of a puff piece which treated Harris as the congressman-elect and barely condescended to mention that there is another party that had the temerity to run a candidate. When a Democratic reader complained, she explained the facts of life to him -- Dems aren't numerous enough to matter here; Katherine is a celebrity and the paper will afford her celebrity treatment; no, I won't vote for her, either; we're not going to pretend we don't already know the outcome of the election.
Last January, Tallahassee Democrat political writer Bill Cotterell was suspended for a week for a harsh e-mail he sent to somebody who was part of an orchestrated e-mail campaign complaining about a Doug Marlette cartoon. (A cartoon the Democrat never actually printed, mind you.) And the managing editor apologized -- yet again -- for the cartoon . (That nice Mary Ann Melone at the St. Pete Times used this to defend free speech at newspapers. Good for her.)
Snotty campus conservatives need to be ridiculed while they are still capable of personal change or they will grow into dysfunctional adults unable to cope the world outside of Rush Limbaugh/Clear Channel radio. The fired reporter was doing them a favor.
Sheesh, everyone's so sensitive these days.
