Dumbed Down Discourse

Once upon a time, eons before the digital age, readers said yay or nay to the content of newspapers through letters to the editor.  On many publications, editorial assistants pored over the daily correspondence, choosing candidates for publication and forwarding them to editors for a closer look.

Today, many newspapers still publish letters to the editor, selected through a process not too different from yesteryear.  But readers eager to voice their views are no longer limited to writing a letter and keeping their fingers crossed that they will receive a positive response.

Today, if something's on your mind, you can post a comment, text a reply, or fire off a tweet in next to no time.  What's more, you're guaranteed plenty of readers, as many newspapers invite online comments and publish most of what they receive.

A step forward for free speech?  Perhaps.  Problem is, in relinquishing virtually all editorial judgment and control (at least in the online comments department), newspapers have allowed themselves to become soap boxes for the ignorant, the uninformed, the narrow-minded, the bigoted, the semi-literate, and sometimes even the unbalanced.  In the rough and tumble world of online commentary, the wise and the witless have come to share equal billing.

Equally troublesome, some online comments never rise above junior high school insults.  Want to rant about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, or Michael Bloomberg?  Talk trash about liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, students, teachers, CEOs, women, unions, senior citizens, the homeless, celebrities, or athletes?  You can foam at the mouth in cyberspace; there's seldom an editor in the background saying, "We can't publish this.  It's vulgar nonsense!" 

While loutish loud mouths have always played some role in American discourse, they've seldom commanded such a large audience as they do today.  And it would seem that ignorance and mean-spiritedness have become contagious, causing online discussions of serious issues to degenerate into mindless taunts and name-calling. 

Surely we can do better than this.  Perhaps editors of online editions should take a page from their old school colleagues and remember that while everyone in America has a right to his or her opinion, newspapers have no obligation to publish intellectual claptrap.  Nor should they feel obliged to publish rude and uncivil comments or any other remarks that smack of stupid.