J. Todd Foster Column: Can’t We All Just Get Along? Or At Least Be Civil?

I love the Internet. It has made journalistic research instantaneous and is quite the source of entertainment. On the downside, it has coarsened debate in our society to such a degree that extremists hiding behind screen names know no bounds.

Newspaper editors and reporters get used to reader abuse, but if you want to incur my wrath, knowingly lie by accusing me of a journalistic death-penalty ethics violation – all because my politics don’t mirror yours. I consider it an attack on my family and an attempt to take food and shelter from my 4- and 6-year-old boys. That the violator himself would be the father of two boys makes the following incident even more disgusting.

The penalty for plagiarism in my profession typically is a lifetime ban from the business. So I consider what a reader did last week to be beyond the bounds of fair play.

He went on our Web site, TriCities.com, and in the reader response section alleged that I ripped off a movie (I’ve never seen) with last week’s column about my one and only skydiving adventure. As you’ll recall, I had several reporter witnesses to the adventure, not to mention that until last week I thought “Fandango” was a dance. As it turns out, it’s a movie and one of Kevin Costner’s first. I plan to rent it if I can ever find it, but in the meantime I’m going to rail against loathsome cowards who use the Internet as an attack vehicle.

The First Amendment does not permit the yelling of “fire” in a theater, “bomb” in an airport, or defamation. A private citizen has no more right to defame, with malice, than a newspaper. We all play by the same rules. Reckless bloggers have been rendered bankrupt by their lack of judgment; see the Wall Street Journal article at http://bit.ly/1hPl1.

The Internet affords a great deal of anonymity and causes normally well-behaved people who would never use crude language in public to lose their inhibitions on the Web, and to launch malicious attacks they know to be untrue.

Internet users leave electronic footprints, however.

As it turns out, this particular gentleman I reference above is associated with several far-right-wing causes and apparently disagrees with my political opinions. That’s fine, but he has never responded to any of our editorials or columns that dealt with politics. He certainly has never been decent enough to write or call me. Why he would wait for a humor column on skydiving to launch his non sequitur attack is bizarre and baffling.

Because some of you may have seen his posts, I offer the following:

After one of his inappropriate responses was removed from our Web site, he wrote of me: “He can defame everyone who voted for John McCain as racists but he’s not man enough to handle a little criticism.”

Fact: My office phone doubles as a complaint hotline, and I’m willing to bet I’m the only person in this area who has cast two presidential write-in votes for McCain. Not voting for him certainly doesn’t make you a racist, nor have I ever suggested such lunacy.

His rant continued: “Funny, but this whole skydiving scenario is very similar to a movie by the name of ‘Fandango.’ ” Then he invoked the p-word.
Fact: Plagiarists typically avoid scenarios in which there are seven other reporter witnesses.

When the staff member who posted my column to the Web forgot to tag it with “FOSTER HUMOR COLUMN” and it was added later, this reader piled on: “Did you notice they changed the headline of it also. Now it’s a humour column instead of the hard driving editorial it was yesterday.”

Setting aside the differences between editorials and columns and the King’s English spelling of humor, a column headlined “Brush with a pothead parachutist and his coonskin hat” probably isn’t hard hitting.

Just saying.

Here’s the deal: My phone number is at the end of this column and on page A4 every day, along with my e-mail address. Any reader who disagrees with me on political issues can say so anonymously.

Our Web site has standards, however. Or he or she can call or write and we can talk about it. I return all calls, e-mails and, believe it or not, snail mail.

Our newspaper is for all readers, not just members of the National Association for the Advancement of Appalachian People, an organization that claims the aforementioned reader. I’m sure it’s a fine organization, but it’s safe to say its members are probably more conservative than I am. And if you voted for John Kerry in 2004, there’s an excellent chance you’re more liberal than I am.

So what? It’s called America. What about the term “melting pot” do ideologues not understand? I’m a gun-owning Christian. The fact I don’t own an assault weapon or attend a fundamentalist church doesn’t make me less of an American or patriot, any more that someone wrapping himself in the flag and the Bible makes him more of an American or patriot.
Our editorial page features divergent views, even though our region is far less diverse than the rest of America. That’s our obligation to you readers.
I am dismayed that a liberal reader saw fit last week to cancel his longtime subscription because I put Cal Thomas back on the opinion page. I brought Thomas back – and added another conservative, Charles Krauthammer – because many of our readers wanted them. I replaced the ultra-intelligent and conservative – but rather dry – George Will because his columns were not resonating with readers.

I am not going to cancel Cal Thomas because a few readers demand it. And I’m not going to cancel Leonard Pitts just because conservatives don’t like him. Thomas and Pitts are provocative. They both do their jobs well.

Our country’s political dialogue has been hijacked by extremists – from both sides. The rest of us have to take it back.

Meanwhile, if you cry “fire” in my theater and try to harm my livelihood, you will – in the words of my great-grandmother, who lived until my early 30s – “draw back a bloody stump.” And you’ll lose your privileges to post on our Web site. I might even pull a Jerry Seinfeld and come to your workplace and heckle you.

Political debate is healthy; lying anonymously and maliciously is cowardice.

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