J. TODD FOSTER: No News Is Bad News From Newspaper Readers

I get lots of fan mail, but my all-time favorite remains a 2006 letter I received at my last editor’s job.

The Waynesboro, Va., reader reacted to a staffer’s column that referred to Abraham Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator” along with other laudatory labels. The News Virginian was a “scalawag rag,” he wrote, and then he admonished me “to pack up your operation and move to another part of the country, where the brutality of Lincoln was appreciated. ... Lincoln was a racist of the first order, freed no slaves with his great ‘proclamation.’ ... No slaves were freed by the federal government until after the War with the passage of the thirteenth amendment. Of course by that time, the ‘old log splitter’ was in his grave due to a sudden case of lead poisoning.”

I put that letter in a gold frame, and it still hangs today in my office, right next to my college diploma. In fact, I was so impressed with this letter that it was on my Waynesboro wall before it was even published as a letter to the editor.

At the start of every year, I create a new file folder labeled “Reader Complaints” and then list the year. I find it helpful and refreshing to revisit these missives every once in a while.

This year is off to a fast start. The early favorite of 2009 arrived last week and was scribbled on a torn-out copy of my Jan. 18 column, in which I called George Bush history’s worst president.

“Foster would not make a good pimple on Bush’s butt,” it said.

The bar is high, folks. You had better bring your A game if you want to top that. And remember, there’s only so many ways you can tell me I suck.

Truthfully, though, my hate mail in Bristol is nothing like it was in Waynesboro. I must be mellowing.

Shortly after arriving in Waynesboro in 2003, a woman wrote me that I “should go back to the rock I crawled out from.”

I got a whole column out of that one by writing that I didn’t crawl out from beneath a rock but was raised by a pack of wolves in the Pacific Northwest. (I actually was born and grew up in Middle Tennessee.)

Funny thing is, this woman still sends me Christmas cards, even after my move to Bristol. (I think she misses me.)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all the nice correspondence I get. My favorite of those also came in Waynesboro, after I wrote a column defending reporter Michael L. Owens, who had written a controversial story. Owens, incidentally, followed me to Bristol and is on this staff.

“A boss is supposed to cower before grumbling from the public or from professional colleagues,” this reader wrote. “A boss is supposed to sell out employees who rub some people the wrong way. Bosses avoid dissent and hide from anything that might bloom into bad publicity or idle lawsuit threats. Bosses reward those who quietly do a fair job – not those who stand out or have any individual flair. You act unlike most bosses I have ever experienced.

“Good job!”

Another nice letter I’ve saved was from a Waynesboro woman who wrote out of the blue without an agenda.

“I simply wanted to wish you a good day and to let you know that I prayed for you today. God loves you. It’s true. When I woke up this morning, I felt God wanted me to tell you that and to pray for you. That’s really all there is to it. I’m a Christian woman (married and old enough to be your mother) and I have no ulterior motive.”
I can use all the help I get and appreciate these sentiments.

Meanwhile, keep those letters and e-mails coming. There are far worse things than being called unfit as acne on a president’s posterior.

Like not hearing anything at all.

J. Todd Foster is managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier and can be reached at jfoster@bristolnews.com or (276) 645-2513.