Asks The Herald to Attribute Names to Spout Offs

To the Editor:
As President of an Upper Township fire company, I am deeply disturbed by the policies of the Spout Off column. Correct me if I’m wrong, please. When a person sends a Spout Off to your online paper, he does so anonymously. When anyone comments on the anonymous post, his name and town are shown in their comment. I would like to respectfully ask that your paper require all Spout Off posters to stop hiding behind their poison pens and let us, the public, see who our accusers are. So many of these posts are made by uninformed people who seem to like to stir the pot and start trouble. Please consider this change to your rules.
I try to factually respond to items concerning my department. Usually, I do well in stating what actually went on. We were accused of failing to call in mutual aid quickly enough. We checked without dispatch time stamps and found everything was done expeditiously. People, when they aren’t actively involved in the fire service, sometimes have the wrong perceptions as to what really goes on. Being a 29-year volunteer, I am sometimes offended by the callus statements made by those who choose not to volunteer. I just think the playing field should be more level.
Dear Mr. Hoster:
Thank you for your letter. Please refer to the column I wrote in the Herald, Feb. 19, explaining the benefits to the community of unfettered speech. We receive a limited number of signed letters to the editor weekly, and have done so for years. When we started allowing the public to post anonymously, public engagement exploded. In a democracy, public involvement is critical.
To your statement, “So many of these posts are made by uninformed people who seem to like to stir the pot and start trouble,” this is unquestionably true. Unfortunately such is inherent in so very much public as well as political discourse, including political advertising at election time. To the issue of people being uninformed: this may or may not be true; it is impossible for us to judge. Hopefully in this case, those with more information will bring it forward, thus edifying the entire community, while not allowing misinformation to fester. To the issue of stirring the pot and starting trouble: it is possible that doing so could be in the public interest; but, where people are just slinging mud via ad hominem remarks, we do our best to delete them.
ART HALL
Publisher