BlogWood: MT Archives

BlogWood comments make the paper, mostly

Chris, a loyal BlogWood reader, sent an email to the Tampa City Council yesterday, just as I suggested in this post on hysterical Christians. Chris also posted the exact same message as a comment on that post. (Scroll all the way down to see the comments)

Today, the SP TImes did an article on reaction to the hateful and repressive actions of the city council members who walked out of a meeting rather than listen to another point of view, and they printed the email that Chris sent. Well, they printed most of it. And they “corrected” a “typo” that was actually meant to be. Here’s both versions:

From the SP Times:

"The behavior of White, Alvarez and Ferlita is typical of hateful Christians. What they can't understand, they fear. Why are these people on the City Council? And what's up with White's statement (that) listening to an atheist even one time could unleash a "snowball effect' on government? He compared it to having unprotected sex. Very twisted thinking. I'm not even sure you could call that thinking."

And from BlogWood:

The behavior of White, Alvarez and Ferlita is typical of hateful christians. What they can't understand they fear. Why are these people on the city council? Isn't there a separation of church and state. Or do they just get to shove their Judeo-Christian god down everyones throat? And what's up with White's statement "Listening to an atheist even one time could unleash a "snowball effect" on government. He compared it to having unprotected sex. Very twisted thinking. I'm not even sure you could call that thinking. Posted by: Chris at July 30, 2004 07:49 AM

So, why did the Times clean up this email message? Chris assures me that the BlogWood version is exactly the email that was sent to the city council, pasted from the original. Chris intended for several words not to be capitalized. An entire sentence was cut out without any indication.

I guess by calling the reprinted emails a “sample”, the SP Times gave itself blanket permission to edit for content and clarity. Too bad they didn’t make that point a little clearer within the article.

EMails should be reprinted without spell checking or editing. These are not letters to the editor which are often “fixed” before publication. I think a few well placed (sic)s would have made for a better solution than an invisible editing job.