Further Reaction to Wahl-Jorgensen

Editors see a policy of limited editorial intervention as the only way to ensure an open and honest debate about the varied issues that face citizens of a multicultural society. They are also eager to show that ethical aims of fairness, accuracy and balance underpin the letters pages.

The process of news production comes to a halt in the letter editors’ offices. Upon receiving many diverse letters to the editor every day, the editors’ toughest job begins. Wahl-Jorgensen stresses the fact that selecting letters is indeed a painful process. This forum of both expression and freedom of speech is crucial for an unbiased theme of democracy to be sparked. This is also a forum of debate. This debate educates, fuels, and disproves the readership. So, it becomes a long process of choosing which articles of importance are relevant and thought provoking enough for publication. Wherever we go, we will meet extremely opinionated people who want nothing more than to dismiss difference and opposition. The likes of these people often are the ones to send somewhat nasty letters, portraying expressions of hate and bias. This is where we must address the prospect of freedom of speech, and where the line must be drawn between opinion and respect. “Editors are reluctant to reject letters, even if they express intolerant views in an inflammatory language” (91). The fact is, as Wahl-Jorgensen continually stresses, without opposition, we would have nothing to argue and nothing to compare our beliefs to. However, “hate speech” does nothing but stimulate frustration and make peoples’ blood boil with “their lack of relevance to the public debate” (90). The prospect of civility comes into play here, an idea that sounds to me like a foundation marker of objective journalism. To keep an open mind about the news, we must accept and tolerate other cultures, races, genders, etc and regularly attend this “marketplace of ideas.” To find a healthy medium between discarding such opinionated articles and only publishing nonobjective ideas, editors retain the right to remove any profanity from an otherwise satisfactory letter. Wahl-Jorgensen uses three words repeatedly to define the letters pages and the aims of their editors: fairness, accuracy, and balance. Fairness pertains to the active demonstration of the different sides of an issue. Accuracy is a staple of presenting news in any form. Balance stems from fairness in the sense that an equal set of opinions of an argument are published. Once again, these all boil down to methods of practicing objectivity, and how every piece is crucial to the ultimate projection of the news.