“Look at what biased Joe Rogers had to say!” “Yes dear, I’ll alert the authorities right away. He must be stopped!”
-- Shutterstock.ComAny type of public performance, even a newspaper column, opens the performer to criticism. I’ve been writing for newspapers for almost 50 years now and have always accepted feedback – positive or negative – as part of the deal.
I get my say, readers get theirs. Fair’s fair.
Years ago, when I left Jackson, Mississippi, to move here, one of my persistent critics mailed me a small yellow Post-it note containing his succinct commentary: “Nashville’s loss is our gain.”
I say “his,” though I’m only guessing at the gender based on previous correspondence I’d received that seemed to come from the same source. In this instance, the writer’s name was not included. My name – and, frequently, likeness – is always attached to my offerings, and I don’t assign much worth to anonymous pot shots.
Still, it was pretty funny. I saved it.
More recently, I have managed to raise the ire of another frequent correspondent, a fellow named Fred. It’s not always easy to discern Fred’s precise point, as his syntax, spelling and punctuation can be a bit tangled. But I’m pretty sure he’s never meant to convey anything complimentary.
After a column in which I poked fun at a certain freshman congressman’s propensity for stretching the truth, by concocting some fanciful whoppers of my own, Fred took me to task.
“Joe you have taken the first step toward of admitting that you have been writing lies for most of your life,” he said. “Joe you wrote that you had been giving advise and strategies to Politicians that being Democrats and that’s the very reason that our country is in chaos on everything.”
I sometimes think Fred has difficulty discerning my point, too.
And he doesn’t intend for his complaints to be private; he typically also sends them to other people or publications, including the Ticked Off column in a local weekly. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the adage that any publicity is good publicity.
I used to fan the flames a bit with Fred, always responding warmly and thanking him for being one of my most loyal readers. But lately I’ve decided not to tease him like that. I’m not sure his heart can take it.
All of which brings me to a recent bit of feedback. A woman named Carla emailed a very polite grievance, which I bring up because it offers the opportunity to make a larger point about today’s culture. After her “Hello Joe” greeting, Carla said she’d put off writing before but had finally reached “the top of my boiling point.”
“Would you mind laying off political conversations?” she beseeched. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Independent or Republican. I don’t want to be reading your commentaries which are biased.”
She went on to tell me what I could do to lower her personal temperature: “Just keep writing about life, how to save money places to visit etc. We don’t need your take on anything political. There’s no value in it to your readers.”
She closed with yet more courtesy: “Thank you if you read this.”
Among my first thoughts was, keep writing about how to save money? When have I done that? Does Carla have me confused with Ms. Cheap? Mary Hance has gotten a lot of mileage over the years with that frugal shtick, but there’s really not a lot of overlap in our areas of focus.
I don’t even mind that Carla presumed to speak for all my readers, or perhaps the entire universe of readers, though she is not qualified to do so. Nor does it bug me that she accused me of bias. Guilty!
What got me was the “I don’t want to be reading” part.
For Carla, the solution for what she doesn’t want to be reading is for me to stop writing it. It’s basically the same approach that people who object to certain books, especially for their children, are increasingly taking these days: demanding that those books not be available in school or public libraries.
Oddly enough, some of them do it in the name of liberty.
I suggest a far easier and more sensible approach for those people: Don’t read those books, or arrange that your children don’t read those books.
Carla, please take note. Thank you.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.