The right to reply (and other clarifications)

Just when he had gotten on my good side too ...

Lee Becker has apparently chosen to air what I believed to be a private email exchange between the two of us regarding a disagreement we had roughly a month ago in an analysis of gaining access to various journalistic audiences. It's an interesting take, to be sure, but I would like to clarify the actual circumstances he's discussing when referring to me.

The chronology, which was omitted by Becker, began when he sent me an email criticizing my column that included the following lines ...

I had hoped you would listen to this before you wrote the column. People who know what is going on in Oconee will now ignore you as uninformed. Unfortunately, others will think you know what you are talking about and be influenced.

See my response on the B-H site.

This really is a bad column.

Arguably, I was taken back by this comment, not because it disagreed with my position, but because it was grounded in a belief that my views were wrong solely because it wasn't Becker's position (in fact, I received various dissenting views that paralled Becker's line of argument, but each of those recognized the rationale for my initial argument and respected my take).

My response, albeit defensive at times, attempting to explain my rationale for reaching this position. Becker's response, unfortunately, swept aside my explanations and hopped back into questioning my level of intelligence ...

I think you are ducking the real issue here. You tried to understand this issue on the cheap. You missed. ...

You chose to be an authority on this issue when you decided to write a column about it. You professed to know what was going on. You didn't say that the four commissioners had not made a case. You said that the ordinance was a mistake and not needed. That's quite different.

It is fair to blame you for being uninformed. You were. You were publicly. And it makes a difference. The Sunday Banner-Herald is quite a soapbox. I think you did the readers a disservice by not investing enough time to really understand the issue.

And you are doing yourself a disservice by not admitting that now.

By my assessment, Becker wasn't attempting to offer an honest criticism of my position. Instead, he wanted to express his disappointment with my position and rationale, and he opted to do that by calling me uninformed and by suggesting that I tried to understand the issue 'on the cheap.' He said that I had lost the respect of the community largely because I didn't adhere to his logic or follow the same path he took to reach his conclusions.

So Becker challenged me to put his response on my blog, which I declined, and I did so for two primary reasons ...

- Calling me uninformed and projecting your personal opinions on the rest of the community's population don't strike me as reasonable criticism;

- Ultimately, it is my blog, and I make the decisions over submitted content, and Becker's challenge to post his comments was rooted in hostility.

Arguably, my second private response to Becker was less charitable, and the spirit of my dissent from his assertions can be felt in additional posts I did during this time frame.

So, with that primer laid out, I'd like to take a look at his primary concern ...

That remains under the control of the organization or person who has attracted the audience in the first place. Increasingly, as journalists operate independently of media organizations, the journalists control the audiences.

The late A.J. Liebling, journalist and media critic, is famous for his observation: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

That is less true today than in the past.

What hasn’t changed is that the right of reply is guaranteed to no one.

This, to me, seems to be a strawman argument. For starters, I'm in the process of replying to an argument right now. I could privately email Becker and let him know of my thoughts, as he did me regarding my column, or I could put up a blog post that responds to some of his assertions.

To suggest that the right of reply isn't guaranteed is foolish. Becker's concern stems from how the reply is made, not if it is made ... because there are ample avenues for Becker to respond to any journalistic or commentary piece.

What Becker is arguing for is assured access to specific audiences in order to make his reply, which is a very different thing. Gaining access to various readers is not something that is afforded to you as a right, but is rather earned through a combination of compelling content and effective marketing.

I've built up a modest audience based on my areas of coverage, my experiences in journalism, the work I've put into a non-compensated hobby I pursue in my spare time and my voluntary participation in various blogs through the area and the state. As a result, over time, I've attracted curious readers who are intrigued by my ramblings.

It's not my responsibility to personally subsidize Becker's readership - or anyone else's - by putting up his thoughts at my blog. I do regularly link to his blog because he does good work in detailing various issues in Oconee County and, various issue-based disagreements aside, I think he runs a very good blog that specializes in hyperlocal content.

Still, it's my decision to choose my editorial content, just as it is his to write about what he wants to. And, likewise, it's our respective decisions to create or deny avenues for various viewpoints or criticisms.