| My opening letter:
Dear John,
You may recall that I sent a letter to the editor in early September regarding John Sweeney's use of a firm from Utah to do push polling against Kirsten Gillibrand. Shortly after submitting this letter, you phoned me and left a voice message saying that the Journal had a policy against publishing such a letter in the absence of my providing you a source for the push poll claim (which I then did -- although, while I
may have missed it, to my knowledge my letter -- with the source provided -- was never published).
I write today to ask you to clarify the Journal's policy in these
matters in light of a published letter to the editor appearing
Wednesday, December 6th in which letter writer Vincent Ferro of Milton writes (among other things): "It is now quite apparent the gay lobby heavily financed the campaign of aging rock star John Hall..."
Since the information does not appear in the letter itself, can you
provide me the source that Mr. Ferro provided your staff for his
claim? Or, did I somehow mistake your policy? And, if so, can you explain why the claim I made of John Sweeney's use of a Utah push poll firm required documentation while Mr. Ferro's claim of heavy financing by the "gay lobby" of John Hall's campaign did not?
John's response:
We have a give and take with many letter writers on a daily basis
about what they are saying. I am not going to go into detail about every conversation I have with every letter writer. I wouldn't do that if anyone asked about your letter. Suffice it say, the more specific the allegation, the more specific
numbers are being used, etc., the more we are apt to question
something. You are asking for hard-and-fast rules when it comes to trying to be a gatekeeper regarding the exchange of ideas that sometimes are rooted in facts, other times are not. I have no simple answer to that.
My follow up:
Dear John
From your response, I take it that your paper's gatekeeper
approach/policies are not hard-and-fast but, rather, grounded in soft-and-elastic judgment calls made on grounds that include, at least, (1) whether letter writers make specific allegations and/or use specific numbers; and, (2) relate to an exchange of ideas rooted in facts or not rooted in facts.
From this guidance, I'm left to interpret that your gatekeepers
consider Mr. Ferro's assertion that John Hall's campaign was heavily financed by the "gay lobby" as something other than a 'specific allegation'; that is, it must be a general allegation instead of a specific one. In addition, I'm guessing that your gatekeepers did not consider the use of the phrase "heavily financed" as a 'specific number' (e.g. 'heavily financed' to many people might suggest a specific numerical weight and implication -- however, apparently it doesn't reach your gatekeepers' threshold of specificity with respect
to numbers or numerical concepts). Last, I'm left to interpret that your gatekeepers considered Mr. Ferro's general allegation regarding the 'gay lobby' to be a useful exchange of ideas not rooted in fact (that is, if I get this correctly, 'gay lobby' is a sort of generic, nonfactual phrase/assertion that is exempt from verification because it promotes an exchange of ideas best accomplished through nonfactual assertions).
In contrast, I see that my assertion that John Sweeney employed an out-of-state push polling firm was considered in the judgment of your gatekeepers as a specific allegation and/or an 'exchange of ideas rooted in fact'. So, if I had written instead something about John Sweeney using gay push pollers or, perhaps, treasonous push pollers or push pollers who hate what America stands for or some such thing, then -- again if I'm getting this -- your gatekeepers would have been less
likely to have asked me for my sources because gay push pollers or treasonous push pollers would have promoted a nonfactual exchange of ideas within the ambit of what your paper hopes to see among the daily give-and-take of it's readers.
Do I have that straight?
John's final reply:
We should have lunch sometime. I have far too many things to do to get into long e-mail exchanges with every reader about every specific of every letter. Sorry about that. But I wouldn't mind talking to you more about this in person at some point.
So, go to the poll and let me know if you think John and I should do lunch? |
