A Question to the Scoffers

 

 

My complaints department writes:

How dispiriting it has been to read the comments asking why I make so much fuss about three words, or go on and on obsessively about the importance of accurate quotation. Some questions for these trivial-minded and often spiteful people :

 

If truth does not matter, then what does matter? If dishonesty is not wrong, then is anything wrong? If everyone has already discovered the truth about the BBC, then why do polls repeatedly show that it is a trusted organisation? And, if it is not worthy of that trust, what hope is there for truth or fairness in this country?

 

It also seems to me that careful, logical argument based upon facts and experience is not so common in the British media that people should actually moan when it is offered to them. Nobody has to come here to read. If they do, they should not be surprised – let alone complain – if they encounter articles that are perhaps a little longer and a little more logically rigorous than the things they are used to.

 

I might add that I would rather spend my holiday in the thin seam of a coal-mine than spend three weeks in the lap of luxury with a certain wiseacre contributor here, who manages to mix tedium with obtuseness to produce a compound that is simultaneously boring and infuriating. One day the Pentagon will succeed in weaponising this compound, and all nations will quail before it.

 

I have suggested to this person before that he should read more and write less. I now add to this plea a suggestion that he also thinks more, before either reading or writing. I suspect his wearisome and over-frequent posts may be putting other, more intelligent and valuable contributors off displaying their comments. They fear they cannot sink to his standards.