The Telegraph Herald - Dubuque, Iowa Online Forum

wmn · Status: Offline

The Telegraph Herald

wmn · Status: Offline

Mr. Coopers editorial of June 15 Re: "Addresses specify letter authorship", tells us about his stay in a hotel and being mistaken for someone else. A long drawn out story, he accepts a package opens it, finds it was not for him, belittles the desk clerk, pats himself on the back for being superior to the hotel staff.
Mr, Cooper then proceeds to rationalize his reasons for ignoring the privacy, courtesy, and safety of authors of letters to the editor.

The TH, unlike almost all other newspapers in the nation, publishes authors' addresses along with their names. Why? The TH claims to ask for addresses to identify authors. In the real world the TH is making targets of those people.

THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE REASON FOR PUBLISHING THE ADDRESS. Not even a good reason.

Giving an address with a submission is for the publishers liability concerns. A response to a letter to the editor should be done with a "Letter to the Editor".
Note that Mr. Coopers home address is never published.

wmn · Status: Offline

Interesting story Mr. Cooper.

I have had accounts, (banks, shopping, credit card, inn reservations, even medical prescriptions) confused with others with the same name. Although it being somewhat unusual, there were/are two others with the same first name, middle initial, surname name and also jr. None are related, yet they live/lived within a small suburb of less than a 10 mile radius. People are more intelligent than you may possibly be giving them credit for and understand no name is unique.

The following are a couple of differences in my approach to handling this issue. I simply told the employee, "No, I am not that individual. There has evidentially been an error somewhere". I did not belittle the clerk or pat myself on the back for being, how did you put it, "not to brag that some of my hunches are correct". As a matter of fact, on the occasion of the prescription mix-up, the wife of the other person just happened to be in line and overheard my conversation with the pharmacist. We all got a chuckle out of it.

It is necessary that the readers know that the opinions are from people like themselves. It adds to the validity of the comment, however, the validity of the CONTENTS of said comment as does the identity of the author rest only on the editor, the publisher, the press, and it always has. Do not blame your contributors for your failures.

And yes, as editor/publisher you and only you have the power to print what the public reads/sees in your paper. If you want to make people stand on their head to get their opinion published, legally you can do so. That does not make it right.

An inherent problem you create publishing peoples addresses is that you invite/force a confrontation with the author of an opinion if someone disagrees. Sadly, some of those people opposing the opinion may and sometimes do resort to violence. Those that do agree are also made to feel they should personally contact the author. What makes you believe the author wants to be bothered? This is not what a "Letters to the Editor" is about or should be about. NO one should be writing or calling or knocking on the door of the author of a Letter To The Editor. Replies or responses are supposed to be through the same medium, a Letter to the Editor! Capice?

I will accept your "hotel" story as fact, but it is a big stretch to imagine it has anything to do with a letter to the editor. I believe it is about 'tooting your own horn', since it was published on the same day your email to me arrived indicating to me your belief that the United States Federal Government Agencies, Iowa State Legislators, women and children abuse agencies, the Nation's schools, newspapers and rights organizations, are all wrong about not publishing home addresses because of the potential for crime or violence, and your solution to be the correct one. You need to corral that ego, capo.