Here’s my contribution to lowering the level of civil discourse: Daniel Okrent, the New York Times’ “Public Editor” is an ignorant scumbag who is obviously not qualified to write for the smallest “shopper newspaper”, let alone for one of the most prestigious papers in the world.
For a recap: Times “reporter” Adam Nagourney writes another of his war-hyping, Kerry-hating, front-page articles. A reader writes him an email with intemperate remarks. Nagourney is so hurt by these comments — which are obviously the first negative comments he’s ever received — that he forwards the message to Okrent, the public editor (obviously not called the Ombudsman for a reason). Okrent decries the level of civil discourse in his twice-monthly column, and, while doing so, debases it even more by using his million-plus circulation megaphone to announce the nasty letter-writer’s name and city. The letter-writer is, predictably, beset by right-wing idiots who easily find his home address and phone-number and begin harassing him and his family incessantly, a result which Okrent either intended or is too stupid to expect.
And what is the Public Editor’s response? Well there’s this choice quote in an article in BusinessWeek
My jaw dropped when I read that. Equating a nasty comment in a private email with public desecration of a place of worship? Surely, Okrent must’ve been misquoted or hyperbolically intemperate in his own remarks. (Besides, the guy wasn’t even a blogger: he didn’t post his message on the internet where it could be read by any number of people; he simply wrote a private letter to a person with whom he disagreed.)
But no, he wasn’t being hyperbolically intemperate — he really believes it! This is obvious, because Okrent repeats that disgusting equation today, in a supposed “apology” on the letter pages of the online Week in Review section of the Times:
Many people were distressed by my mention of various readers’ names in my Oct. 10 column, and particularly by my singling out one who had sent an especially vituperative message to Times reporter Adam Nagourney. My policy: I consider all messages sent to me, or forwarded to me by Times staff members, to be public unless the writer has stipulated otherwise.
Every message sent to my office gets an instant response asking if the writer wishes his or her name to be withheld. No signed comments are published without confirmation of authorship, either by telephone or e-mail.
I published the name of the man who wrote to Nagourney for the same reason that newspapers publish the names of people who commit other grievous acts. The man who vandalizes a church, say, doesn’t want his name in the paper either. But I don’t think his wishes should protect him from public responsibility for what he has done.
Same goes for public editors: I was wrong to call the reader a coward; that was engaging in the same debased discourse that I condemn. I apologize.
DANIEL OKRENT
What a guy! Owning up to his mistakes, right?
How fucking wrong can you be!
“The man who vandalizes a church” (notice how its “vandalizing a church” this time, rather than the more incendiary swastika on a synagogue) is committing a felony act and his name is published when he is arrested and his crime becomes a matter of public record. The man who curses someone in public or private has not committed a crime in this country. (Not yet, anyway.)
If Okrent cannot understand this fundamental difference in the workings of this country, its Constitution and its legal system, then he is just a bully abusing the pulpit afforded him by the First Amendment. For the sake of the continuing freedom of the press, Okrent’s bosses need to set him straight or send him to the unemployment line.
