Spare Room Be our guest…

In my line of work I get a lot of sniping from the public — comments like “you are a whore”, or comments about being either fat or ugly (the default insult for all womankind), even anonymous insults on the back of envelopes (scroll down). Then there are the trolls. The people who like to “have a go”, usually in an online community, but also more directly via email. Mostly, I ignore them, but occasionally I don’t.

The following email exchange is with Kimberly, a kiwi babyboomer living in Boulder, Colorado over this recent sideswipe item about the NRL trophy.

Kimberly writes:

“Not only isn’t this funny, but it’s homophobic and ignorant. No, I’m not suffering from a overdose of Ponsonby political correctness. This was just flat out stupid and offensive.

Obviously the reader associates a man and a boy hugging each other with pedophilia and then somehow makes the jump to homosexuality-because as we all know homosexuals are pedophiles.

I know a lot of people read the Herald and you can’t help that some of them are dumb, but what about the Sideways editor, Ana Samways? Isn’t she capable of doing her job anymore? Perhaps Sideways has run its course and the woman is reaching too far to make her column interesting. I hope you think about it because these sorts of dumb posts are making your entire paper look more and more amateurish every day.”

My reply:

“I’d like to respond to your comments regarding the following item about the NRL trophy. Chris Hegan’s comments were tongue in cheek and in my opinion in no way homophobic. In a democracy, he is allowed to suggest the trophy was a bit fey for such a macho sport.

How you extrapolate from his comments that he associates the depicted hug with paedophilia is beyond me. He does no such thing. Your further fantastical leap to suggest he implies the mythical link between homosexuality and paedophilia is ludicrous.

The following day true blue fans set him straight regarding the origins of the pose depicted in the trophy, which was the point of publishing Chris’s comments in the first place. Dialogue with readers is the essence of the column. By the way the column which has been published 5 days a week for nearly 7 years is called Sideswipe, not Sideways.”

Kimberly responds:

“You’re wrong. Myself and many of my friends found it incredibly homophobic and ignorant, not to mention that it wasn’t funny. Your column has run its course and you have no editorial talent whatsoever. I’ll be glad when the Herald gets rid of your worthless contribution.”

My reply:

“You didn’t address any of the points I made in my response. Instead, you chose to be nasty and personal. Ok, so you didn’t like that item. That is one item in a daily column that has been running nearly seven years, and from that you deduce that I have no editorial talent and that the column has run its course? Hilarious.

Sideswipe is one of the most read columns in both the newspaper and online version and sorry, it’s not going anywhere. Might I suggest you don’t bother reading the column and therefore increase the IQ of the Herald readership considerably. “

Kimberly responds:

“I didn’t address them because you obviously have the IQ of an idiot. The statue shows a man hugging a boy which you then allow one of your readers to write means “pink” or homosexual. And then you write back saying you don’t understand how I made the jump to pediophilia [sic]? You made the jump for your readers.

Further, to write back “hilarious” in an email and insult a member of the public is very unprofessional. You are a writer at the country’s biggest paper. You aren’t a teenager editing some on-line blog. It’s no wonder me now why you edit the biggest piece of fluff in NZ. Humor has a certain element of intelligence in it and you have none. I don’t care if you think you’re going anywhere or not.

If your paper decides to keep publishing this junk, you’ll end up going down the same road as every other paper-fighting for readership as the people who can’t read good reporting on-line like in the NY Times-die. You are severely deluded if you think advertisers are going to continue to want to solit [sic] editors who pander to educated white trash readers. You are a horrible, stupid woman. Please do not write back to me.“

UPDATE: The latest emails between myself and Colorado troll, Kimberly. It was never going to end well.

My reply:

“You are unhinged Kimberly. Get some therapy.”

Kimberly pulls out the big guns:

“What part of “please don’t write to me” don’t you understand. If you continue harassing me with emails, I will file a police report.”