A reader e-mail that irks me...

That's why I usually take so long to respond to your posts.

 

Good one.

 

It takes you 24 hours to call me an idiot?

 

I think he was talking to me.

 

Oh.

 

dear sir - boarding a school bus in order to participate in a cross country meet is not news. being on a team, especially cross country, is not news. and having a heart is not news.

reporter jay
the daily bugle

 

I'll say it again. Kent Benson tried hard in the NBA too. Did that make him any good?

 

worked so hard it split his teeth.

 

I agree with this. If it were a profanity-laced tirade, I'd ignore it. But this guy took several minutes of his day to write you and give detailed feedback about your coverage of the team.

And for a response to this, I really recommend you not write something flippant or snarky in response. If all you can write sincerely is "Thank you for your feedback," leave it at that.

 

Yeah, you have to write something. Otherwise he'll stew. When you explain why you are writing about the winners, he might not agree but you'll at least give him an understanding

 

Right on. That's how I usually handle the situation, and it's typically with e-mails with more venom than that one.

However, I guess you could always tell him that if you did write about all those other kids, the story would take up so much space that the 98 percent of readers who would rather set their houses on fire than read about high school cross country would be sending you mean e-mails.

 

If the parents have a form letter, shouldn't we as reporters have one by now. That way we can just copy and paste the same one to everyone. Who is up for the task?