Offending readers
My newspaper column
In the past month, we've published three stories that have provoked intense reader reaction. Much of it, sorry to say, was negative.
The first was a humor column about dating that made an oblique reference to pre-marital sex, specifically that wearing socks to bed could kill the mood.
The second was a feature story about a group of men trying out for an HBO program modeled after its popular "Entourage" series. One of the men talks about driving "wasted."
The third was a front page story about an ad campaign sponsored by heterosexual people who support Greensboro's gay community. The ad featured the catch phrase, "We're straight, but not narrow."
In each case, readers suggested that our articles glorified and legitimized offensive behaviors and should not have been published without accompanying editorial condemnation.
The concern is that impressionable readers could get the wrong idea about what's right behavior. For instance, a teenager could decide that it's OK to drink and drive after reading the "Entourage" story.
Frankly, I doubt we have that kind of influence on the youth of today. The truth is that television puts much more random sex, violence, drug use and overall offensive behavior out there unchecked. And young people learn more about behaviors from their friends and family than they do from newspaper reports.
Still, we take the privilege and responsibility of being invited into your home seriously. We aren't in the business of needlessly offending readers, but we also don’t purposely ignore stories or details that might get under people's skin. The reality is that people drink and drive, have premarital sex and have different gender orientations.
How do we draw the line on what to publish? When we have information that we know will offend some readers' sensibilities, we weigh the potential for gratuitous impact with the information’s news value and relevance. We don't publish stories that encourage unlawful or patently offensive behavior. But we do acknowledge it exists. With that in mind, here's why we published what we did on the topics above.
* The anecdote about driving "wasted" in the "Entourage" story told readers as much about the group and its behavior as anything else in the article. At no time was that behavior celebrated.
* The writers of the humor column were voicing their opinion, and, honestly, their tone scarcely encouraged pre-marital sex.
* The advertising campaign encouraging people to treat lesbians and gays with dignity and respect was newsworthy, plain and simple.
Every day, we write about people who think and act differently than many of our readers. It comes with the territory of living in such a diverse region. A good newspaper strives to inform people about different ideas and pushes readers outside their intellectual comfort zones. The reality of the community today is that there are many voices and many views.
Moving along. Yesterday, we introduced our new metro columnist, Jeri Rowe. Jeri, former editor of Go Triad, will write columns on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, alternating with Lorraine Ahearn.
Jeri is a better writer than I, so I'll let him tell you what he's up to.
"I plan to trek across the Triad, looking for people and places that make the region what it is today – a quirky, culturally rich region working to reinvent itself. And whatever I find, I hope to write it like a letter, digging into things that I hope will make readers laugh or simply think about where -- and how -- we live.
"I've always loved to find those personal stories that zeroed in on some bigger theme we've all run into -- the importance of love, the need to persevere, the fear of the unknown, etc. And yeah, some of those stories I've found have had that touch of Technicolor, way-out-there weirdness. And that's cool by me."
Me, too. Please check out Jeri's column three days a week.
Finally, we've combined the Work & Monday section with the Ideas section. Find it behind the Ideas front.
Comments (1)
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I don't think you need to validate the reasons you print things, John. The truth is everyone has a difference of opinion, and your always going to offend someone. Print something about gay people, and religious fanatics go nuts. Write something about religious people and the atheists go nuts. The truth is, if everyone accepted everyone else for all their faults, and all their skeletons, we'd all realize we're all alot more similar, then we'd like to admit.
Posted on July 2, 2006 11:12 AM