TS - Reflections on ‘Lettergate’

Reflections on ‘Lettergate’
Charles Winkler

Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice -- watch out.

That seems to be the emphatic message for writers of phony letters to area newspapers, including this one. After some on-the-ball e-mail cross-checking by the North Coast Journal, followed by the outing of a phony letter writer by the Eureka Reporter, it appears war has been declared on anyone who would sign a false name to a letter to the editor.

It’s about time.

We’ve been preaching and warning about this, and the related topic of turning in letters written by others as if they were your own, for years on this page. Some examples:

* My practice is to print every letter we receive that meets our letters policy. That is, we accept letters that are 250 words or less (not 280, or 350, or 500); that include the full true name of the actual letter writer (no form letters from websites, please); and that have the full street address and phone number of the writer. (Dec. 7, 2004.)

* We care about our readers’ thoughts and viewpoints -- the genuine words expressed by the person signing his or her name at the bottom of the letter. That’s the whole point of our daily letters forum, which regular readers know carries the full range of North Coast opinions. (Jan. 11, 2005.)

* When I get a slew of these type letters (astroturf or letters presented as original thought, but actually copied from a website), which muck up our already backlogged letters hopper, I’m tempted to not run any of them. Before I’m forced to that extreme, please -- help me out, and your fellow readers. Jot down your own, original thoughts and send them in. Don’t try to bury us in an artificial sea of manufactured opinion. (July 26, 2005.)

Now, thanks to the reporting efforts cited above, area editors are all on the lookout, and may even share information about suspicious letters.

In the instances above, we actually checked the letters in question turned in to area newspapers, including the T-S, under the false names of R. Trent Williams and Jacques Jacoby. We were told by the people contacted by phone that they were the writers, under those true names, of the letters in question. The letters were subsequently printed.

We did our due diligence, and were apparently lied to. That’s doubly annoying. And that’s part of the hue and cry behind the stories mentioned above, and our own take on the issue, published Saturday. Journalists don’t like being systematically lied to, whether it’s a false name or a false fact.

What’s the big deal? Simply this: A letters page is supposed to be a true and honest community forum, with a range of straightforward concerns and challenging viewpoints by our actual neighbors, colleagues and other fellow area residents. When people lie by turning in letters under false names, or letters not actually written by them but copied from somewhere, they’re trying to manufacture opinion, instead of just share their own.

To my view, that’s a perversion of individual free speech, because the reader doesn’t know who is saying what and for what reason. It’s also just plain cowardly.

We live in the greatest country on the planet, even if it is flawed at times. And one of our greatest laws, the First Amendment, allows us to say whatever we want, individually and by name, without fear of being whisked off in the night to a gulag somewhere.

Americans have fought and died for those freedoms -- and are doing so right now. So it seems almost criminal that someone would twist that principle of free and open expression, as embodied on a traditional newspaper letters page, for shadowy personal reasons, as in this “Lettergate” scandal.

That’s why this is a big deal.

But by the same token, bravo to the hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of letter writers who participate in our letters page every year. Keep your comments coming, and let the best open, honest viewpoints prevail.