Is it just me, or did civility go out of vogue when e-mail communication came in?
As a community newspaper that wants to be responsive to its readers, we encourage you to write -- and make it easier by including reporter e-mail addresses at the top of local stories and columns.
Still, I'm surprised at the hostility with which some people take up the invitation. For all its advantages, e-mail seems to free people to be nasty in a way they never would if they had to put stamp to envelope.
A recent story about local eBay sellers drew the ire of a reader who took exception to the line that the online auction house is lowering some of its fees and eliminating others.
"So, you seem to have interviewed the neighbors, but you appear to have missed the scoop. Not exactly top-notch around there are you?" she began, in lieu of a salutation. She went on to say that because eBay also is raising some of its fees, "that is not a decrease in fees -- do some freaking math." She ended with the zinger, "Here get yourself a story," and a link to an Internet article on the topic in the on-line equivalent of hanging up on me.
Do some "freaking" math?
A tongue-in-cheek column on the choice of Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories" as Michigan's first "one book" reading project drew praise from a member of the Michigan Humanities Council (the project's sponsor) but scorn from a reader. Somehow my admission that I don't much care for the author meant I was "dismissing" him as a "so-so talent" and too macho for my "sewing-club tastes."
About my playful suggestions for how book clubs and state tourism could benefit from the decision, the reader commented, "That'll be a pot of swashbuckling fun" and, "That's another excellent reason, dude. High-fives," before accusing me of not having read the book and of demeaning the paper by being on its staff.
Huh?
But my favorite was from an anonymous reader I think of as "the schoolteacher," who wrote with a grammar lesson after my column accidentally got changed when it was edited for length.
I wrote back to explain the mistake, but couldn't resist letting her know the article she referred to actually was a column.
"Interestly (sic), my 'American Heritage Dictionary' defines 'column' as 'A feature ARTICLE that appears regularly in a newspaper or other periodical,'" she replied.
"Do you mean, 'interestINGly?'" I teased, warming up to the game.
"Touche," came the message back. "I look forward to reading more of your columns."
Staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos can be reached at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
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