I enjoy reading the letters as much as the articles, even some of the abusive ones (Locutus springs to mind - often abrasive but funny, intelligent and to the point). Salon should welcome these because they attract readers almost as much as the articles themselves.
It's a good point made by others that writers like Sidney Blumenthal get little feedback because of the magisterial authority of his writing, whereas some other writers can attract a lot of often well-deserved flak. But it's also true that some threads, even supposedly 'factual' ones, do just degenerate into chaos. For example, the response to any article making vaguely critical observations about Israel is guaranteed to end in a welter of ridiculously polarized views, unanswerable and selective pseudo-erudition, and wild accusations.
But this is a good thing as it shows not that there's anything necessarily wrong with the article, but that there's something wrong with people's understanding of the issues and Salon is right to highlight it.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
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