How to Reply to Articles about ASH

Reporters view suicide and the Net as an interesting, novel topic, but that does not stop them from writing about it from a very conventional point of view. Ashers may want to respond to such articles to set the score straight.

Is it worth the effort? A newspaper or news website will typically allot a small, marginal space for such responses. Even if your response will be archived, the expected impact is limited. So if you really feel a need to respond, then by all means, but don't spend too much time or effort about it. Adjust your effort to the expected impact.

So, you have decided to write a reply. Your objective is to get published! If the article was published on a news web site with an open forum, then this is not an issue since you can write anything you want. The rest of this document addresses the case where there is no open forum, rather, the editors of the news publisher receive letters and decide which ones to publish.

The first thing to do is read replies which have been published previously by the organization that published the article. Get an idea of what length of response and what writing style is considered appropriate. Typically, your response will have to be quite short. Also, note if their is an acceptable time frame for your reply. It may be that only replies to relatively new articles are published. In that case, you should not delay your reply for too long.

Since you do not have a lot of space to write, you must focus your response. Ask yourself what message do you want to convey, and focus on that. Not taking this approach may lead you to several pitfalls.

One pitfall is focusing too much on the reporter and not on the story. You might be very mad about the reporter and attack him for his poor research, logic, etc... Such attacks may be justified, but a news organization would not be interested to publish such replies. They can take criticism, but the reason they publish replies is that they contain new interesting ideas and perspectives about an article. Personal attacks are not interesting for the reader.

For example, instead of accusing the reporter for being biased, you can say that the story did not have a thorough presentation of both sides of the issue. This may be more palatable and allows them to demonstrate their objectivity by letting you show the opposing side.

Another pitfall is to write filibusters. Such replies typically start out of rage against the reporter, and they meticulously dissect every small error. The problem with this approach is that your reply will be very long ( and thus less likely to be published by some news publishers ).

In addition, filibusters are essentially a subtle personal attack. It is an indirect way of saying: "its not just a small part of the article that was wrong... every single paragraph is wrong... and that indicates that not just the reporter's ideas are wrong, but he, as a person, is wrong, stupid, etc...".

Finally, a common pitfall is including weak arguments ( this also typically occurs in filibusters ). Weak arguments obscure stronger ones, so leave only the strong ones in. In my opinion, weak arguments include reference to trolls (unless trolls are the central focus of the article), technical inaccuracies of the reporter, grammar/spelling mistakes, etc...

If you follow the "focused" approach, you will probably find that you cannot squeeze all that you wanted to say in an article of reasonable size. In that case, you can coordinate with other ashers, divide the important points between you, and send several replies.

Sending many replies has an additional advantage, since news organizations and particularly letters editors, often like to publish letters that reflect what they are hearing from their readers - taking a letter that in their opinion best states what lots of people are saying.

Finally, making a joke or a pun helps. It lifts some of the weight of the criticism, makes better reading, and shows some flexibility on the letter writer's side.

EverDawn

Acknowledgment: Thanks to Hermotimus Boukephalos and Karin Spaink for providing feedback on early drafts.