Sticks and stones may break my bones and all that.
Last Sunday I was sitting in the company of compatriots reading the Sunday Mail. Several of the articles, notably those reporting on the latest developments in the Cyprob, lawyers, the IPC and our president’s conciliatory yet inconsequential speech, evinced such vitriol from the gathering that I wondered whether the Sunday Mail had become an organ for the disaffected to express themselves thoughtlessly. Don’t they know that after 36 years of pointless negotiations that this is the country of far too much news (mostly conjecture) and far too little action?
A reader’s immediate response to the contents of any article is invariably not well thought through. I snooze in a chair like a cat and cogitate before I write. It takes me hours to construct an opinion column, which is then edited carefully by the gals at head office ahead of publication. I try not to offend or be libellous. Agreed, even after editing there might be syntactical errors, misprints or mistakes, nevertheless, there is a deadline to meet and sometimes errors cannot be avoided.
I have been submitting articles for the past five years and do not expect to please all of the people of all the time; besides, it is not my aim to please at the expense of content. Many of my articles require hours of research and on-the-spot investigation. For this I receive abuse or unconstructive criticism from online comment contributors, and occasionally praise. I hear you: he who cannot accept criticism should not write – abuse I ignore.
But we writers of Opinion, Features and News would sometimes love the opportunity to respond to some of the online comments. Due to company policy to remain neutral and not personalise anything, we do not.
Online comment patterns are always the same, that is, the first comment posted relates loosely to the article, thereafter it becomes a free-for-all for most commentators to bitch among themselves, or even worse, to air private grievances online that bear no relation whatsoever to the content of any piece.
You have most probably gathered from this that I occasionally peruse this online facility, but am fast losing interest, or worse, know what’s coming from the Bobs of this world. Interestingly, the Bobs outnumber the Marys by ten to one, and the Marys are mostly polite, respectful, concise and to the point, aware that to be offensive serves no purpose.
The truth is that a dozen or so commentators, always the same guys, monopolise the online webpage on a daily basis. This cannot be a good thing. Have they nothing better, or at all, to do, or is it their primary aim to defame and deconstruct? Guests in a foreign country should at least be polite and diplomatic.
In the Old Days, not so long ago, comments were despatched by email to the editor, or through the post in the form of readers’ letters. Writers had time to think, reread through their piece, rationalise their comment, check spelling and grammar and then, if selected, await a future edition of the paper to see their thoughts in print. Selection eliminates abuse and irrational criticism, or more particularly, letters written thoughtlessly and in the heat of the night.
Many will argue that the above procedure is discriminatory, but given the appalling irrelevance of the majority of online postings, it seems the right way to go.
The pity is that the paper used to receive and print many excellent letters and these writers have now been swallowed up by this electronic online machine of modernity.
Perhaps the Editor might consider extending the Letters page, giving it a middle spread; Letters are popular, and along with Coffee Shop, Opinion and the Sports’ pages, the most read.
Sensible journalism deserves a sensible readership if it is to survive. My hope is that sensible readers return with their letters and restore some semblance of order to a newspaper read worldwide by those of us who care about Cyprus and its seemingly insoluble problems.
I realise that I might seem to be slapping wrists, but given the time it takes me to construct any piece, I know where I’m coming from, even though last week my piece contained a sentence ending in the word ‘was’!
“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.”
DH Lawrence (1885-1930) was an English author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. His opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship and misrepresentation of his creative work. At the time of his death his reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. EM Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing Lawrence as “The greatest imaginative artist of our generation.”
In the above quote from Lawrence, he uses the word ‘got’. I was always taught never to use this word – ‘have’ is better. Some of you will also complain about his choice of the word ‘nothing’. Perhaps ‘little’ is better! And what did he mean by ‘hot’? Nowadays, this word alludes to sex. Probably did back then also. I could go on, but then you might accuse me of being a Bob.
Bonne continuation…
