Free Speech Friday - The Daily of the University of Washington Online

Cheap Filler Post

I got a letter published in the University's daily newspaper inadvertently.

Since they had an online version which allows comments to individual articles (something that the local press may want to consider e.g. Todayonline etc.), I posted a comment which was eventually republished as a "letter" to the editor.

The problem is that my writing style when comment on blogs or blogging for that matter tends to be more conversational and a lot snarkier than in contrast to my letters to the press (which reminds me, I should start tagging them as such).

And the thing is, the editing was fairly minimal in comparison to either the Straits Times or Today (I'm not sure if Streats when it existed published any letters of mine). In fact, on checking, there was barely any editing at all (and in fact the editing done was clearly marked out by square brackets).

So *cough*, the functional effect of it was that it was a lot more adversarial and less polite than I would have phrased it. In particular the way I ended the comment

I realize that not all of us are lawyers or necessarily well read in a particular area of law, but seriously, where’s the fact-checking in this regard?

So I feel kinda bad now.....