Letters to the Editor
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HOWELL'S HOWLS
I am 'one of those people' who emailed the Post's website regarding Deborah Howell's shoddy excuse for journalism. When I posted, there were about 120 responses. I read them all. I later went back and read about 100 others. I saw one or two emails containing profanity and saw a couple of messageboard trolls who used explosive language (i.e., 'fire that *itch!!'). Considering what I have seen on some blogs and messageboards, this email board was mild in the extreme. The vast majority of posts were well-written and requested that Ms Howell retract her comments and correct her error. Many pointed out that this was not the first time Ms Howell had made this false assertion, and they were angry (not hateful) that Ms Howell had chosen to repeat her false assertion and that her editors had allowed this to pass a second time. As far as any 'hate speech'--- I saw none.
And by the way, what if there is hate speech on a blogsite messageboard? What's a blog manager to do?
Blog owners have posting guidelines on their sites and they are free to delete posts which violate their guidelines. That is the adult way of running a blog. You write guidelines and you monitor your email/posts and you delete those that are offtopic, or which qualify as spam, or are 'flamebait' designed to rile people up, or use profanities you don't like or engage in hate speech. You don't delete THE ENTIRE MESSAGEBOARD.
What kind of nonsense is that? Is anyone at the online Post internet savvy? There are trolls everywhere. Thankfully, they are a small minority of posters. You simply delete their posts and leave the rest alone.
The vast majority of posts on the online Post messagebord were fine. They were, however, critical and they pulled no punches. In the more civil times past, Ms Howell would have been told by her employers to print a retraction the first time she'd made the mistake, which would serve as a reminder not to make the same mistake again. Since Ms Howell ignored the readers of the Post the first time and was not reprimanded by her employers for disseminating false information, she saw no reason not to ignore the readers a second time.
Compare this to the reaction to Dan Rather's 'Memogate.' When rightwing bloggers went ballistic over the National Guard memo shown on '60 Minutes', the mainstream television and print media IMMEDIATEY picked up on their rage and began reporting the story. Conversely, when Ms Howell deliberately spread disinformation (having been notified by her readers of her error the first time) the response from the Post has been to castigate their readers and to disingenously characterize the anger of the blameless majority as 'hate speech.'
Bit of a difference, is it not?