To: delinda.fogel
Sent: Thu, Aug 8, 2013 2:54 pm
Subject: Anonymous Death Threat and Incitement to Violence Against St. Augustine City Officials in 7/24 post on staugustine.com
Dear Ms. Fogel:
1. By printing threatening, inflammatory anonymous comments, the St. Augustine Record is a tortfeasor, and facilitates commission of federal crimes -- cyber-stalking. 18 U.S.C. 875(c). As in 1964, the Record is once again discouraging citizens from participating in our democracy. Please consider the views of Washington and Lee University Journalistic Ethics Professor Edwin H. Wasserman, from "Media Ethics Magazine" (quote reprinted below).
2. I will ask our City of St. Augustine City Commissioners to address the St. Augustine Record's serial posting of anonymous, threatening incivility and bigotry at their meeting on Monday, August 12, 2013. Please attend to explain your positions. Note: our City Commissioners voted to become a "Compassionate City" at their last meeting. We are the first "Compassionate City" in the State of Florida.
4. The Record's longtime website posting of anonymous hate speech is a stench in the nostrils of our City. It is contrary to our community values -- contrary to the genius of a free people.
5. Threatening, racist, sexist, homophobic and intimidating speech violates the Record's own Posting Rules. Do you agree that the Record has a legal duty to obey its own rules? See, e.g., Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957). Or are they optional in your opinion?
6. I hereby invite learned Holland & Knight counsel (Messrs. Gabel and Sikorski and Ms. Judas) to kindly review the many inflammatory postings and the Record's insurance policies, including exclusions for intentional and recklss torts. I know and respect Messrs. Gabel, Judas, Rep. Sikorski, et al. (I testified before Rep. Sikorski on security clearance holders' rights when he was a subcommittee chair). I know that your H&K lawyers will ably advise the Record and Morris Communications' of their potential tort liability for compensatory and punitive damages (e.g., in the event that one of the Record's numerous inflammatory anonymous hate post incitements to violence should ever result in death or injury).
7. No one has a "write" (your spelling) to print hate speech on anyone's website. Who ever told you that such a "right" existed, when and where? No "right" to post hate speech on your site exists.
8. Will you please identify the anonymous poster so that the FBI may investigate possible cyber-stalking and civil rights violations. If not, why not? This is not a First Amendment issue -- this is not an anonymous news source, but an anonymous bully threatening our City officials.
9. I would be willing to revise my draft August 1, 2013 letter the editor on this subject into a 600 word column, in which I would quote you, Professor Wasserman, et al. Please let me hear your thoughts.
10. Again, I respectfully urge the Record to cease and desist from ever again publishing anonymous hate speech. Again, Monday night, I shall urge our St. Augustine City Commissioners -- we are the first "Compassionate City" in the State of Florida -- to ask the Record to reject anonymous, threatening hate speech -- an issue that former Commissioner Errol Jones rightly first raised several years ago. From this day forward, let us work together to raise the quality of debate in our Nation's Oldest City. See Prof. Wasserman's Media Ethics Magazine article, reprinted below.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
Clean Up St. Augustine
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
PO Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
-----------
"Threats to Ethical Journalism in the New Media Age" (Excerpt)
(Media Ethics Magazine, July 2010)
By Professor Edwin H. Wasserman
Washington and Lee University
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Professor of Journalism Ethics
(snip)
ACCOUNTABILITY
Here I want to talk about the rise of anonymous comment. In the bad old days, when public comment was sparse, letters to the editor were rare and were carefully edited. Few responsible papers ran unsigned letters, pains were taken to make sure the authors were who they claimed to be.
Somehow, when news organizations went online, that scrupulous insistence on authentication fell away. Papers bought into the idea that robust discourse required anonymity, that people were entitled, indeed had the right, to make whatever comment they liked without having to identify themselves.
Indeed, the latest wrinkle in this is that some news organizations in the U.S. are claiming that anonymous posters deserve the same protection as confidential sources-that people who comment online on a news report are deserving of the same consideration as vulnerable sources who might have been relied on in compiling that report.
Obviously, there's a world of difference between a source whose identity the reporter knows and has agreed to conceal, and a source whose identity is known to nobody.
To be sure, there are times when anonymity is powerfully beneficial. But signing on to a culture of discourse in which nameless and reckless denunciation is normalized is a deeply troubling development.
Here again, the push to do this is coming from managements that want to re-establish on the Internet the centrality their news organizations had traditionally held offline, and want to be "the big tent" into which all community discourse is drawn. They fear that enforcing archaic standards-such as insisting that people actually stand by their own words, heaven forbid-will frustrate that marketing objective.
And here again, you see the blithe acceptance of online practice as having normative significance. When in Rome. This is how things are done online, so I guess it's OK.
And finally, you again see a real failure to consider harms. Not only, in this case, defamation. But, in my view, unrestrained, anonymous speech, leads to a bruising, painful style of discourse that actually discourages participation and leads people who might honestly have things to say to sit down and shut up.
(snip)
http://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/analysis-commentary/3919175-threats-to-ethical-journalism-in-the-new-media-age
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Slavin
To: Fogel, Delinda
Sent: Thu, Aug 8, 2013 12:27 pm
Subject: Re: 7/24 post on staugustine.com
Who is the commenter? Why is "he" exempt from posting rules?
On Aug 8, 2013, at 11:38 AM, "Fogel, Delinda"
Ed-
I’ve reviewed the commenter’s remarks and have concluded that it is not a death threat. Therefore, I will not remove it from our website. The commenter is making (sic) an opinion that the city leaders should be shot. He does not come out and say “I’m going to shoot the city leaders in the plaza”. There is a huge difference. I also think the commenter’s post in using the shooting as a metaphor is for sensationalism and not to be taken literally. While we may not agree with the commenter, he (sic) has a write (sic) to express his opinion.
Delinda D. Fogel
Publisher
The St. Augustine Record & staugustine.com
One News Place, St. Augustine, FL 32086
delinda.fogel@staugustine.com
T 904-819-3421 | C 904-466-5169 | F 904-819-3538
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