EDITORS: I am so sick and tired of how you handle your letters to the editor. Why must you post a reply after somebody's letter to you? Just let your readers speak for themselves, without your defensive asses slapping on some whiny rebuttal? The letters page should always be the public's forum to say something, without staff intervention. I'm talking about Emily Hall's reply in this week's letters [March 21]. So what if you don't agree with the reader's comments? If you think the letter is stupid, DON'T PUBLISH IT. You have the rest of the rag's pages to state your feelings. Let the readers have their OWN space. Publish factual corrections if you must, but don't use the letters page to keep rebutting reader responses and displaying how pathetically defensive you are.
Jeff, via e-mail
THE STRANGER RESPONDS: The list of publications that respond to readers' letters is a long one, littered with prestigious titles like The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The New Republic, National Review, The New York Review of Books, and Maxim.
As a rule, The Stranger only responds to letters that are (a) factually incorrect, (b) written from a misunderstood or misconstrued viewpoint, or (c) from the pens of whiny, hypersensitive readers who think our paper's letters section is intended to be "the public's forum to say something without staff intervention." Letters sections are meant for reader participation, yes, but not allowing writers to respond to reader criticism would leave readers with a distinctly unfair advantage. Letters sections are the most read section of any newspaper; many letters are read by people who did not read the article a letter's writer may be critiquing. If letter writers are allowed to tell lies, mischaracterize the piece they're responding to, or yodel on and on about their crackpot theories, letter readers who did not see the original article may not realize that the letter writer is an ass. That's why it's important for the writers to respond.
Despite what Jeff seems to believe, letters sections are not intended for readers to have the "last word" on a particular subject--especially when a letter writer's "last word" includes baseless accusations hurled at a writer under the faulty assumption that the writer will not be able to respond. And while declining to publish letters from misinformed readers is certainly an option, doing so would invite charges of censorship. Rather than censoring our readers' letters, we prefer to publish as many letters as possible, withholding comment when we agree or are unable to refute a letter writer's argument, and responding when, as we've already stated, the letter writer is an ass.
If any of this is still unacceptable to you, Jeff, then there are any number of mealy-mouthed, spineless publications that do not let writers respond to readers' letters. Perhaps you would be happier reading these publications:
Highlights For Children
People
O, The Oprah Magazine
Foreskin Quarterly
US News & World Report
(Before anyone writes an angry letter taking us to task for treating Jeff so rudely, please bear in mind that Jeff started it. He said we had "defensive asses" and called us "pathetically defensive" in his letter so, technically, to quote Sylvester Stallone in First Blood, "He drew first blood, not us.") [Correction: The actual quote from First Blood was "They drew first blood, not me." The Stranger regrets the error.]
Speaking of The New Yorker (which we did, if you'll recall, way up in the first paragraph), all of us here at The Stranger would like to point out that that The New Yorker is the greatest magazine in the world, hands down (second place: Redbook)--especially since David Remnick assumed the editorial reigns from Tina Brown (Brown, you'll recall, left The New Yorker in 1998 in order to start Talk, a magazine she quickly steered into an iceberg). What makes The New Yorker so good, week after week? What is its secret? We dunno. If we knew, we would be working at The New Yorker and Remnick would be working for this piece-of-shit newspaper.
(Full Disclosure: No one who currently works at The Stranger has ever worked at The New Yorker, but there are at least 10 people on our editorial staff who have subscriptions to The New Yorker. Also, we feel obligated to disclose that we have other letters from other readers that by all rights should appear in this week's letters section, but Jeff's letter has us so steamed that we're just not thinking rationally--and, shit, sometimes The New Yorker only runs one letter and one response, so why can't we do the same?)
Finally, we were going to insert a joke here (we even had the space reserved for it in one of the early drafts of this response, complete with a bracketed note that said [insert joke here]--though such a tidbit is undoubtedly of very little interest to you, the lay reader), but, sadly, we seem to have run out of space. The joke was very funny. Here's some highlights: A man out drinking with friends. An angry wife. A $20 bill in a shirt pocket. And the punch line, "Oh, he shit my pants too." For a complete transcript of this joke, please send $5 and an SASE to The Joke, c/o The Stranger, 1535 11th Avenue, Third Floor, Seattle, WA 98122.
