Old advice for a new age

A HALF-CENTURY AGO, at the first convention of -he National Conference of Editorial Writers, renowned newspaperman Henry Louis Mencken admonished our founders with these words: "No editorial writer," he said, "ought to be permitted to sit in an editorial room for month after month and year after year, contemplating his umbilicus. He ought to go out and meet people."

Simple words (with the exception of umbilicus!), simple message: Get out of your ivory editorial tower and listen to the people lest you make a mockery of your profession.

Mencken's message retains its relevancy today, which explains its presence within the corner of cyberspace we know as NCEW Online, and it is a message every online (and perhaps offline) commentator ignores at his or her own risk. Why? The oneword answer: interactivity.

You see, there are no ivory towers on the Internet. "The people" have rejected both the editorial elitism of the past and the hit-and-run punditry of the present. They have demanded a voice in the national discourse, and the World Wide Web has given them that voice one that often is unfiltered and unlimited.

We can either embrace the reality of 21st century journalism or be vilified and abandoned by a more enlightened audience that no longer wants to be told how it is but wants to tell us how it should be.

I speak from the perspective of a journalist with but one year of online experience, but let me tell you, it has been a most humbling year.

The first essay I authored for IntellectualCapital com had to be pulled offline because I naively quoted an Internet junkie who had a reputation as a bigot. An incredulous reader immediately questioned my judgment on the bulletin board at the end of my article, and I had to endure the embarrassment of a rewrite.

Several months later, I spent days on the bulletin board sniping with a reader determined to read into my words something I had not written. "Suddenly," I whined at one point, "I know how politicians must feel when their audiences twists their words out of context."

I could have handled both cases differently - by deleting the comments of the first reader who challenged the character of my source and by arrogantly refusing to clarify my writing to the second. But I have since learned, again by painful experience, that the delete button should be used sparingly on Web-based "letters to the editor."

A few months back, I made the mistake of deleting a bulletin-board comment that I thought was "off topic," a violation of our "Code of Conduct." I spent much of the next morning deleting the vulgar and fraudulent flames of the same reader, one of the resident lunatics on our bulletin boards.

Once the flaming began, I had two choices: 1) offer a mea culpa of sorts to save me the hassle of a day in the trenches as "IC moderator;" or 2) ask the technical team to block a disgruntled reader's access to our site entirely. I chose the former.

Why? Because even maniacal readers sometimes have something noteworthy to say. In interactivity, as in life, you learn to take the good with the bad. We do moderate our discussions at IC - we even hired a man whose job in large part is to do just that - but we cherish the value most of our readers add to the debate.

More importantly, we have learned that folks appreciate a little robust debate with the writers whose work they take the time to read. A perfect example: In a recent article in defense of animal rights, the author engaged his readers in a week-long debate about the merits of his argument - and the readers profusely lauded the author for listening to them even when he continued to question their logic.

So what can fellow NCEW members take from my experience? Simple: Learn to listen to your readers/ viewers. Give them a voice rather than force-feeding them only those of your choosing.

Attach e-mail addresses to the end of every editorial and/or column you publish, both in print and on the Web. And for those editorialists who have the luxury of a Web page, broadcasters included, encourage debate by creating bulletin boards and "Pass it on" features for every opinion piece.

As several NCEW members noted in a November listserv thread on call-in and e-mail letters to the editor, your audience will appreciate the effort - and sometimes will reward you with insightful commentary. Your readers also will make you a better writer, both by noting your mistakes, sometimes with glee, and by directing you to information you might not have found otherwise.

Yes, you will have to moderate the discussion at times, but hey, that is what editors do.

Above all, remember the words of H.L. Mencken. They are a testament to a man who shaped the public opinion of his day and a reminder to those who would emulate him in this Information Age.

NCEW member K Daniel Glover is associate editor of IntellectualCapital.com, a weekly opinion magazine published only on the Internet. He is also a freelance columnist. His e-mail address is Danny@a2s2.com

Copyright MASTHEAD National Conference of Editorial Writers Spring 1999
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