Excellent note from a reader

[SCEditor]

I once had a guy write a letter to the editor that started like this:

"Youth and ignorance is alive and well, writing sports columns for the Podunk Press."

He then proceeded to rip my column, but his problem was I had the facts and he didn't know where I got them. It involved some people as anonymous sources.

So I e-mailed him back, explained to him that sources were used in the column, but I can't reveal them. But that the first line of his letter was good. He and I exchanged pleasant e-mails from that point on.

Now, a guy who previously worked at the paper once got one of his columns sent back to him after it had been used for, well, umm, toilet paper.

So I was happy that this one was, you know, clean.

 

[imjustagirl2]

I have one reader who has sent me several friendly e-mails over the past couple of weeks. It started with a question, and has since grown into a very conversational tone. He even sent me a picture of his dog the other day. Good guy.

No one sends me hate mail so much...they just leave me voice mails. :(

 

[ColbertNation]

I know your first reaction is to respond in scathing fashion, but it can only lead to bad things. I've made it a policy not to respond to angry e-mails or letters, as anything I say in them would only get me in trouble.
I do hang them on the wall, though. The typos and half-sentences can be entertaining at times.

 

[cortez]

I don't respond, but I do keep a hit list

 

[shotglass]

I think not picking up on "MISTEAK" as a piece of intentional comedy is the worst offense of any here. ;)

 

[Idaho]

I got a letter like that back in college. It was from a very poorly written, sloppy, mistake filled brief I typed up quickly just before deadline.

The clip had a red pen taken to it several times and it stung when I read it.

I kept the clip in my wallet for eight years -- which is when I lost that wallet. I wish I still had that clip to pull out and look at every now and then.

If you do decide to reply, acknowledge your mistake. Credit the person for catching it and promise yourself to keep trying harder.

 

[shotglass]

Hey, we had a former news-side copy editor who made a habit of leaving these red-penned clips in the mailboxes of writers and other copy editors alike. And he'd never sign them, although we all knew it was him.

Let's just say payback is a *****.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

If you guys get a kick out of malaprops, you really should read Richard Lederer's "Anguished English." You'll be laughing so hard you can't breathe.

 

[busuncle]

I know your first reaction is to respond in scathing fashion, but it can only lead to bad things. I've made it a policy not to respond to angry e-mails or letters, as anything I say in them would only get me in trouble.
I do hang them on the wall, though. The typos and half-sentences can be entertaining at times.

I did the same thing at the last job for which I had a desk/cubicle in the office. My hate-mail wall was always a good conversation piece.

I had a colleague who would literally let that stuff ruin his day. Or, worse, he would spend an hour crafting the "perfect" response. Never understood why he let it bother him so much.

 

[Ace]

I got a letter like that back in college. It was from a very poorly written, sloppy, mistake filled brief I typed up quickly just before deadline.

The clip had a red pen taken to it several times and it stung when I read it.

I kept the clip in my wallet for eight years -- which is when I lost that wallet. I wish I still had that clip to pull out and look at every now and then.

If you do decide to reply, acknowledge your mistake. Credit the person for catching it and promise yourself to keep trying harder.

Good story, Idaho.

So what you're saying is you should use this as a learning experience and take better care of your wallet in the future.

 

[Idaho]

Exactly. I lost that clip, $7 dollars, my debit card, some pictures of my kids and my drivers license.

The lesson was that you should really empty your wallets on the shore before jumping off a rope swing into the Snake River just for fun.

That and run your last-minute briefs through a spell check and an editor before sending them to press.

 

[fmrsped]

How did an improper use of their and there get by your desk?!

Ahhh, memories.

 

[andyouare?]

I always had the same response to any nasty e-mail. Whether it was 5 pages long on why we don't cover their team, or two sentences telling me how bad my story was:

"Thank you for reading the Podunk Press."

That's it. Nothing else. What are they going to say? A friend told me about it and I used it ever since.

 

[shotglass]

What are they going to say? You won't agree with it, but here goes...

"What a smarmy SOB."

And you shall argue, what did I say that was so smarmy? Because you know they can't provide a good argument. But YOU know it was a smarmy response, and THEY know it was a smarmy response.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

When Dave Lawrence left KR's Detroit Free Press to become publisher of KR's Miami Herald, a Freep cartoonist drew a cartoon of Lawrence sitting amid smoldering office furniture, with the caption: "Dear (Mr. I Forget Now): Only a reader who truly cared about the Free Press would take the time and effort to construct a letter bomb ..."

 

[busuncle]

What are they going to say? You won't agree with it, but here goes...

"What a smarmy SOB."

And you shall argue, what did I say that was so smarmy? Because you know they can't provide a good argument. But YOU know it was a smarmy response, and THEY know it was a smarmy response.

I guess I could see that.

My rule of thumb is that any reader who takes the time to write a polite note (even if it's a polite note to say that I'm a dumbass) deserves a polite response.

Anyone who can't write without being inflammatory or rude (or worse) doesn't deserve any response at all.

 

[alleyallen]

Angry calls ... the really angry ones with no real journalistic truth to them ... at my first paper got saved on voice mail and we'd listen to them from time to time with a laugh.

Believe me, we could distinguish between a legit beef and just plain lunacy, like the woman who said God was going to take care of us because we hate the Dallas Cowboys. First two games of the season the Cowchicks played late-ending games, so their stories ended up on the inside. They finally play a primetime game, get trashed, and because it ended in time, wound up on the front page. Therefore we must hate the Cowchicks AND God.