Hateful style

[Jim Thomsen]

I'm troubled by this story that appeared today in my newspaper. (On Tuesdays, I work on one of our weekly news tabs and as such, wasn't editing local copy.)

Here are the first three grafs, and in bold is what bothers me in particular:

Peggy Stanley says as Poulsbo residents are confronted by racist letters that seek to divide them, community members are reacting by coming together.

Stanley’s 17-year-old adopted daughter, Jasmine Campbell, was thrown into the center of controversy after organizers of Poulsbo’s Viking Fest received [b]hateful letters about Campbell’s selection as Miss Viking Fest 2006. She’s the festival’s first black winner.

Last week, a handful of letter writers began sending racist e-mails to Viking Fest organizers criticizing the choice of Campbell in late April. They said the position should be held only by those of Scandinavian heritage, according to organizers.[/i]

In that construction, I feel we're making an editorial comment that the letters are hate speech. My opinion is that it's not our place to make that characterization. If we want to quote others saying they're hateful, that's fine, but we shouldn't be saying it on their behalf.

What do you think? (For now, we'll leave aside the other obvious usage issues in the story.)

[zammie]

I agree, Jim.

At the very least the reporter should've got a first-hand account of the e-mails' content if quoting the e-mails wasn't allowed. The e-mails probably were hateful, but that's for the subject to say, not us.

Issues elsewhere: I'd prefer at least that Campbell is in the lede. And the lede is quite awkward: What exactly are community members responding to? :-)

[Mike O'Connell]

And "confronted by letters" sounds like the letters are doing the confronting, when they are not.