You’re entitled to everyone else’s opinion
There was an interesting incident in the column-writing trade a couple of weeks ago, involving readers’ reaction to opinion.
It started when Bret Stephens, who had stopped opinionating for The Wall Street Journal, wrote his first outburst for The New York Times. Many loyal readers of the Times must have been immediately suspicious. Could the Times have accidentally let in the door a writer prone to conservative cogitations?
His column intimated that some callous activities of the human race may contribute to global warming. Disturbed defenders of truth (Conservative) began contacting the Times to inquire why a blatantly wrong thinker (Liberal) was allowed on the premises.
Many of the complainants included the long-favored threat of the disgruntled newspaper reader: “cancel my subscription.”
A few days later, either fuel or water was thrown on the fire by Dick Polman, well known in Philly, who wrote an online column defending Stephens. I was interested in his comments about folks who expect newspaper operatives to be devastated by the threat of the canceled subscription.
Polman, himself a liberal, I think, pointed out that subscription cancelers “basically embraced the notion that a single piece on climate change cancelled out the acres of space that Times reporters have devoted to detailing the perils of climate change.”
It always puzzled me that so many people want, and seem to expect, to agree with and like everything they read in a newspaper. As a columnist in the old Bulletin back in the ’60s, I often heard froma reader who said that he or she had always read my columns and loved every one, but disagreed with yesterday’s column and therefore would never read it, or The Bulletin, again.
Why did those people feel that canceling the paper was necessary because of one small disagreement? My wife and I disagree occasionally, but we haven’t cancelled our marriage license.
When an irate reader blasted me on the telephone and said he was going to cancel his subscrip- tion, I sometimes said, “Hold on, and I’ll transfer you to the circulation department.” Nobody ever took me up on that.
I often made the mistake of trying to give both sides of a situation in a column. I don’t remember ever getting thank yous from those on both sides of a column subject, but I occasionally got letters from both sides of an argument that each accused me of being biased toward the other.
Curiously, I got more complaints from historians when I wrote about history than from politicians when I wrote about politics. Successful politicians develop thick skins. Some historians believe no one without a degree should write about history. And in Philadelphia, you can write a wisecrack about somebody as far back as the 17th century and get a nasty complaint from a relative.
Polman’s piece about Stephens suggests that lately, “We’re suffering outrage overload.” The internet, Facebook and such advanced forms of rudeness make it easier to denounce writers’ opinions. Comments on websites tend to be light on grammar, spelling and syntax but heavy on venom and formerly unprintable words.
You won’t find all that garbage in a newspaper. (Should I say, usually, or not yet?) If you disagree with any of this, please don’t cancel your subscription. We can’t be wrong all the time.
Visit columnist Jim Smart’s website at jamessmartsphiladelphia.com.
Editor’s Note: A typing error in last week’s column gave the wrong number of people living within 500 miles of Philadelphia in 1926. It was 50 million.