Transparency is one of the most popular buzzwords of our time. We demand it of government and also of many other societal institutions. The media makes a federal case out of any stonewalling by government, the military, universities, religious organizations, and everybody else. They pontificate about transparency all of the time, and pundits constantly whine about anything and everything that does not live up to their standard of openness. For the most part, that is a very good thing and is central to the functioning of a democracy.
One place where the media diverges — dramatically so — from their customary transparency drumbeat and demands is with respect to themselves. If you write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, you are required to be transparent. You almost always have to identify yourself with your real given name and contact information. In contrast, if you post an email on a newspaper website, you can hide your identity behind an anonymous email address. This lack of transparency encourages unrestrained excesses of speech that contribute very little to reasoned public discourse and detract from arriving at consensus solutions to our many existential problems. They almost always detract from that goal, which is also presumably the newspapers’ goal as well.
Why do the media treat two parallel, essentially identical concepts so differently? In both cases, newspaper readers are encouraged to comment on articles, opinion pieces and generally on the issues of the day. There is no qualitative difference between the hoped-for content. The only difference is the mode of delivery. And sometimes, even that is the same: The Washington Post, for example, permits letters to the editor that will appear in its print editions to be sent to the newspaper by email. Whether email or snail mail, such communications must fully identify the writer. Papers filter letters to the editor through a rigorous censoring and moderating process. The Post editors go a step further and even follow-up with respect to the letters that will appear in print by calling the writer and confirming identity and contact information.
This acts as a useful constraint on the extremes to which the public discourse all too often veers when contained in an online post. Newspapers still exert considerable editorial control. So why do they treat the online version of the same thing so differently? Online comments on the same issues, articles and opinion pieces that are subjected to detailed scrutiny get posted instantly without any filters.
This democratization of the online media comment world results in both a lot of angry, nasty and downright insulting ad hominem attacks, followed quickly by ad hominem attacks by email commentators on each other that make for salty and entertaining, if not particularly edifying, reading.
There is no reason why email comments should be treated any differently than letters to the editor. There are plenty of reasons why they need to be treated exactly the same.
“Rants” is a series of political and social observations written by part-time Canandaigua resident and Canandaigua Academy graduate Richard Hermann.
Transparency is one of the most popular buzzwords of our time. We demand it of government and also of many other societal institutions. The media makes a federal case out of any stonewalling by government, the military, universities, religious organizations, and everybody else. They pontificate about transparency all of the time, and pundits constantly whine about anything and everything that does not live up to their standard of openness. For the most part, that is a very good thing and is central to the functioning of a democracy.
One place where the media diverges — dramatically so — from their customary transparency drumbeat and demands is with respect to themselves. If you write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, you are required to be transparent. You almost always have to identify yourself with your real given name and contact information. In contrast, if you post an email on a newspaper website, you can hide your identity behind an anonymous email address. This lack of transparency encourages unrestrained excesses of speech that contribute very little to reasoned public discourse and detract from arriving at consensus solutions to our many existential problems. They almost always detract from that goal, which is also presumably the newspapers’ goal as well.
Why do the media treat two parallel, essentially identical concepts so differently? In both cases, newspaper readers are encouraged to comment on articles, opinion pieces and generally on the issues of the day. There is no qualitative difference between the hoped-for content. The only difference is the mode of delivery. And sometimes, even that is the same: The Washington Post, for example, permits letters to the editor that will appear in its print editions to be sent to the newspaper by email. Whether email or snail mail, such communications must fully identify the writer. Papers filter letters to the editor through a rigorous censoring and moderating process. The Post editors go a step further and even follow-up with respect to the letters that will appear in print by calling the writer and confirming identity and contact information.
This acts as a useful constraint on the extremes to which the public discourse all too often veers when contained in an online post. Newspapers still exert considerable editorial control. So why do they treat the online version of the same thing so differently? Online comments on the same issues, articles and opinion pieces that are subjected to detailed scrutiny get posted instantly without any filters.
This democratization of the online media comment world results in both a lot of angry, nasty and downright insulting ad hominem attacks, followed quickly by ad hominem attacks by email commentators on each other that make for salty and entertaining, if not particularly edifying, reading.
There is no reason why email comments should be treated any differently than letters to the editor. There are plenty of reasons why they need to be treated exactly the same.
“Rants” is a series of political and social observations written by part-time Canandaigua resident and Canandaigua Academy graduate Richard Hermann.
