Give her some slack
I'm surprised at the venom in this thread. I'm glad that she chose to write about pool. Writing about pool might encourage people to play and more people playing, well, that's a lot of people playing....you know the rest.
The point is, when someone writes a column, it's hard to continually come up with topics and eventually you're going to rub people the wrong way. I say give her a break and be glad for the publicity that pool got-good or bad.
I also think that we as Americans write nastygrams way too often. To the people that sent her a nasty email, have you ever sent an email to a writer that you didn't know to tell them how much you enjoyed reading their article? I try to balance the good and bad by writing two good letters (at least) for every nastygram that I write. I also try to phrase the nastygram so that it is tactful and takes issue with the opinion or error instead of the writer.
As someone who writes a column for a local newspaper, I can tell you that it's disheartening to get hate mail. I was recently called a 'fascist trying to create an elitist hovel' in print because I stated my opinion that young people should invest in real estate. I have never gotten an email or card from someone who enjoyed my column. Since I do it for the joy of it and don't get paid a dime, it can be even more discouraging to receive these types of letters.
One last point, after getting barraged with hate mail from pool players because they didn't see the humor in the way she depicted our sport, do you think she'll ever forray into writing something positive about our sport again?
Cheers,
RC
TX Poolnut said:
I'm surprised at the venom in this thread. I'm glad that she chose to write about pool. Writing about pool might encourage people to play and more people playing, well, that's a lot of people playing....you know the rest.
The point is, when someone writes a column, it's hard to continually come up with topics and eventually you're going to rub people the wrong way. I say give her a break and be glad for the publicity that pool got-good or bad.
I also think that we as Americans write nastygrams way too often. To the people that sent her a nasty email, have you ever sent an email to a writer that you didn't know to tell them how much you enjoyed reading their article? I try to balance the good and bad by writing two good letters (at least) for every nastygram that I write. I also try to phrase the nastygram so that it is tactful and takes issue with the opinion or error instead of the writer.
As someone who writes a column for a local newspaper, I can tell you that it's disheartening to get hate mail. I was recently called a 'fascist trying to create an elitist hovel' in print because I stated my opinion that young people should invest in real estate. I have never gotten an email or card from someone who enjoyed my column. Since I do it for the joy of it and don't get paid a dime, it can be even more discouraging to receive these types of letters.
One last point, after getting barraged with hate mail from pool players because they didn't see the humor in the way she depicted our sport, do you think she'll ever forray into writing something positive about our sport again?
Cheers,
RC
