“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.”

It would seem that among us that publish on the Web, the wise and reserved voices are few and far between (though I can think of one). Quite often and sadly, it seems that the price of entry that one must pay as a blogger is to be a keening and overzealous creature that easily succumbs to fits of passion.

Specifically, I’m referring to this post by Mr. John Dowdell in which he was forced to comment on a couple of items that bloggers have missed the boat on. I had a feeling that most of the online publishers would get the DOJ/Google legal battle wrong on their scorecards, whether by sheer ignorance or simply a lever by which to generate traffic (BTW, this post from Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Watch lays out why this request isn’t a big deal, though there is always room for precedent).

But what really got me going was the response to the story about the Washington Post. Deborah Howell, the WaPo Ombudsman, got quite a bit of impolite email in her inbox over a column she wrote on Jack Abramoff. A couple of choice excerpts:

Michael Crowley of the New Republic said in his blog that “while for all practical purposes this is indisputably a Republican scandal, the narrow liberal-blogger definition of whether any Democrats took money ‘from Abramoff’ — which neatly excludes contributions he directed his clients to make — amounts to foolish semantics.”

These facts have been reported many times in The Post and elsewhere. So why would it cause me to be called a “right-wing whore” and much worse?

…and…

But it is profoundly distressing if political discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy.

Also, consider this: one item on the WaPo blog was singled out by Kossacks, resulting in off-topic comments and personal assaults. Because of this, the Post had to close comments on their blog, which was rewarded with further derision.

I once felt ashamed to be a blogger. Now? I understand that something has to be said.

It doesn’t get any plainer than this: if you expect this form of communication to grow and to thrive, you MUST accept the responsibility that comes with having a blog.

It’s not just from the perspective of Google et.al. (fact: I’ve seen posts that I made ten years ago on the Bruce Campbell Usenet group still show up in searches). Words have a lasting effect. They can be used to easily convince someone of something that may not be true, they can slander, and they can cut, sometimes very deeply. When you have a large audience (as I do not…yet), it is especially imperative that you practice restraint and exercise caution in what you say. In the case of Kos and Charles Johnson (just to name two), there are those among their regular audience that will take what they say and play out it to the extreme.

Well, you might be asking, what can an online journalist/blogger do? Fact check, for one. Maybe write that rough draft when you’re feeling that need to shake the pillars of Heaven with your righteous anger, but save it and look it over when you’ve cooled down. Why? Well, I reckon getting hit with a libel suit is no fun. You can save yourself a lot of hassle when you choose your words carefully.

Yeah, it’s all common sense stuff, but if common sense were common, I wouldn’t be posting this, now would I?

Now…how’s that for a first post to TextPlanet?