Letter to the editor: The importance of editorial ethics in civil discourse

Dear Mr. Rhoades,

Thanks for your letter.

Greta Hyland was previously the editor of this fine publication. Was it unethical for her to publish opinion pieces? Do you condemn her alongside me for that?

I published my response to Leigh Washburn’s second piece simultaneously with her response because she had already indicated that there would be no further response from her. There is no ethical imperative that dictates the necessity of a certain interval of time between responses.

And as you notice, we publish letters to the editor as quickly as possible.

You wrote that “The Independent has abandoned industry ethics by consistently publishing opinion pieces by the editor that are provocative and without substance.” If you would like to see where journalism’s standards currently fall, look no further than Huffington Post, CNN, The Washington Post, etc. If you think that using the misfortunes of people’s personal lives as pornography is ethical, visit stgeorgeutah.com. Been to dangerous.com? Like it or not, that’s journalism in 2018. If ethics in journalism really is an important issue to you, I would contend that there are far bigger fish to fry than The Independent.

It has become fashionable to claim that behavior that one objects to is unethical simply because one objects to it. This is the cornerstone of identity politics: “I’m offended.” It’s an attempt at censorship by shaming a voice into silence. It won’t work on me. Ben Shapiro is editor in chief at The Daily Wire, a right-wing news outlet. He does a talk show five times a week wherein he espouses his personal opinions far more harshly than I do. There is none of the editorial consensus there that you describe as being ethically essential; on the contrary, his verbiage is filled with first-person statements. I fail to see any significant ethical difference between that and what we do at The Independent. Perhaps you can delineate where exactly that difference lies.

Orthodoxy does not equate to ethics. Orthodoxy is little more than a combination of peer pressure and groupthink.

Movements are made of people, but they are ideas. Corporations are also made of people, but we have seen what happens when they are treated with legal personhood. Projecting personal identity upon an idea for the sake of generating a false victimhood is a common political tactic, and it often works because it is emotional in nature. But movements are fair game for criticism, and as both the Nazis and the communists within our borders are swelling in numbers, it would behoove us all to remember that.

For the record, the LDS Church IS currently spraying ex-Mormons all over the countryside like uncontrollable diarrhea, and this is not an attack on a person; it is an observation of statistical fact. It is common for people to claim victimhood when all that has been under assault are the bad ideas to which they cling. The more intelligent people among us will know the difference when they see it.

You wrote that “The Independent can continue to publish Gottfried’s opinions, but I think it is obvious that it comes at the expense of thoughtful public debate,” and yet here we are, having the public debate whose demise you have already mourned. The public will note our love of free speech as illustrated by our willingness to print even libelous accusations. As I have said, the bad ideas and poor arguments will be identifiable as such by their lack of merit alone.

Minimizing harm necessitates the criticism of ideas and by corollary any groups that make it their business to spread them. To suggest that minimizing harm means being entirely flaccid in the face of bad ideas and their proponents is a quietist position that will inevitably lead to the eventual moral degradation of society — because who can criticize evils if ideas and groups have been determined to be invincible to criticism? Again, the “I’m offended” argument simply doesn’t hold water when so many members of Utah’s LGBTQQIP2SAA community in one day committed suicide based upon the whimsy of the LDS Church. Ideas cannot be harmed in the sense that people can, and it is dishonest to attempt to put them on similar moral ground.

Because we are southern Utah’s only independent free press, I openly challenge you to point out both where I caused legitimate harm as well as what I wrote that is without substance.

Just because The Independent is a place for all ideas to be expressed doesn’t mean that they will remain unchallenged.

Guest contributor, you must remember that, according to himself, Gutfrud is “widely regarded as the greatest writer of all time, ever”. Baaahaahaa! You are dealing with a real narcissistic winner here. Don’t be surprised if you never get the last word when debating with this champ. I certainly will be avoiding his poorly opinionated articles by the Independent.

It is my observation that you have engaged in several logical fallacies that make true civil discourse difficult if not impossible to proceed:

1) Circular reasoning: You conflate constructive criticism of The Independent’s current editorial strategy with civil discourse (the phrase I actually used) and debate. I fundamentally disagree with your claim “here we are, having the public debate” and believe you do yourself and your readers disservice by cherrypicking out the qualifier “thoughtful”, which is a fundamental element of my criticism. Public debate aspires to something much greater than having to discuss the use of logical fallacies, the ethics of your publications actions, etc. This is about the structural elements your writing lacks that encourage trust in the community to actually talk about the content of your arguments. I can only speak to myself when I say the ethics that establish trust and respect with your readers is utterly lacking.

2) Strawman Argument: You have intentionally misrepresented my letter multiple times in your response. I never used the phrases or ideas of “offense” or “identity politics”. I never suggested “that minimizing harm means being entirely flaccid in the face of bad ideas and their proponents”. I never said orthodoxy equates to ethics. And I never shamed an author or advocated for censorship. Strawmen are fallacies because they “intentionally misrepresent a proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.” I will not engage ideas posited under such fallacious means.

3) Ad hominem attacks are something much larger than your rhetoric claims. They are an attempt to discredit an argument by “attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself”. I provided such examples in my letter and you repeated one here. You voluntarily ascribed to not participate in ad hominem attacks so holding you to that standard is fair no matter how you try to rationalize your actions: its one I agree is critical to civil discourse. You have referenced two modern provocateurs, Milo Yianoplois and Ben Shapiro, who regularly use ad hominem attacks in their various platforms. And we are not talking about petty insults that are non-fallacious in use but ones that are at the core of your (and their) argument. For example, take your previous statement: “My favorite (read: least favorite) leftist hypocrite from this particular movement was (and still is) Linda Sarsour, the Muslim feminist — an actual living and breathing oxymoron.” The personal attacks (leftist, hypocrite, living and breathing oxymoron) are attacks on her character without actually dealing with the substance of her or her organization. They are powerful shorthand that plays to reader bias. Your further that fallacy by not engaging in actual details of their march or philosophy but instead “exaggerate or oversimplify the arguments” of her and the WMW, ie another strawman.

4) Slippery slope: The notion that my position (a strawman fallacy as previously highlighted) “will inevitably lead to the eventual moral degradation of society” is an example of a slippery slope fallacy if there ever was one. Nothing is inevitable in my letter to the editor, given its a voluntary challenge, and especially not the moral degradation of society. That is a type of fear mongering that has no place in rational, thoughtful debate.

5) You also misrepresented my criticism about concurrent publication, as it was Washburn’s first piece that I cited. She was obviously not done given her follow-up so your statement there is without merit.

You should know better as editor to employ these fallacious rhetorical techniques but they are found constantly in your writing.

Comparing yourself to HuffingtonPost and DailyCaller, in relationship to journalistic ethics, is telling as view both are commonly viewed as partisan clickbait, ie not “a neutral platform” or the community voice. Discussing editorial and journalistic ethics transcends such stereotypes and is better referenced to the SPJ or other organizations that have long guided the industry.

I suggest The Independent and you, its Editor, seriously reconsider the current strategy. The concurrent publications of an editor’s response prioritizes your opinion instead of allowing the readership to consider the merits of the original author’s statements on their own. An organization that respects and trusts its audience recognizes they are able to analyze and deconstruct ideas without the persistent voice of the editor. The same goes for your use of the comment sections here. I reiterate that an editor should not have such a dominate voice if The Independent truly values its mission and creating a “neutral platform”. Challenging you to adhere to industry ethics is not shaming. It is not censorship. It is an appeal from a reader for you to do better because we value your organization. Ultimately the choice in The Independent’s hands but know if the paper chooses to continue down the road of clickbait and emulation of provocateurs I, and many others in the community, have been honest about withdrawing support and use.

Hi Mr. Rhoades,

Thanks for your comment.

I openly challenged you to point out both where I caused legitimate harm as well as what I wrote that is without substance. In your response, you did neither but instead reasserted the same vague claims of ethics violations. I’ll respond point by point as I have with everyone else.

1) This elementary course in logic 101 is an exercise in nitpicking and missing the point, both of which I suppose you are within your rights to do.

So here we are having a debate, a discussion, a lecture, whatever you want to call it. Seems like a debate to me, just not one that meets your standards of excellence.

The ethical allegations are empty. I have been counseled that we have done nothing unethical. I’ve checked this out and pointed to examples demonstrating that what you’ve criticized is commonplace. You can continue with vague criticisms about ethics as long as you like, but until you make them specific, concrete, and legitimate, I can’t find a good reason to entertain them any further.

I have found no circular reasoning in what I wrote.

2) Now you are informing me of my own intentions, which suggests powers of telepathy. I can apologize if you felt I misrepresented you, but the fact of the matter is that your piece is right there for anyone to read. Intentional misrepresentation and unintentional misconstrual are quite different. And it sounds to me that you simply dislike my tone and are using complaints about ethics in an attempt to change the way I write.

Paraphrasing or using different terminology isn’t building a straw man. While you may not have used the words “offense” and “identity politics,” you are writing amid the context of several pieces by several authors during the course of which the ideas of offense and identity politics were central. I can only take your comments in that context. Using words you didn’t use to talk about issues within that context is not building a straw man.

I’m still waiting to see what the harm that has been caused is. Seems like there would be a legal issue there if I had. I don’t know what you meant to suggest, but you did bring up minimizing harm without pointing out to anything.
You brought up the issue of minimizing harm. The inference is that you think I somehow caused harm, and I’ve been waiting to hear what that is.

Again, you criticize on the grounds of what is orthodox amid unsupported claims of ethics violations without naming them. What it sounds like is that you are missing the difference between news and opinion.

If you haven’t noticed, the community is most certainly talking about the content of my arguments; unfortunately, I am commonly seeing people saying that they didn’t read a piece at all or attacking the publication itself. It is hard to take anyone’s criticism seriously when they demonstrate that they have flatly ignored what they criticize. But one can’t realistically claim that the community isn’t talking about the content of my arguments.

3) I’m getting the impression that you just now looked all of these up on Wikipedia. Ad hominem doesn’t work as a logical device because it doesn’t directly address the argument. However, like the appeal to emotion fallacy, it does work as a rhetorical device. If I call you an idiot, I didn’t prove you wrong. If I prove you wrong, I prove you wrong. If I prove you wrong and call you an idiot, that doesn’t suddenly mean I didn’t prove you wrong simply due to the presence of an ad hominem attack. It’s called the fallacy fallacy. This seems like something you would already know if you were going to lecture about fallacies.

Of course, whoever you refer to “commonly” referring to the Huffington Post and Daily Caller (I assume you meant the Daily Wire) as “partisan clickbait” has engaged not only ad hominem but also the genetic fallacy, but the difference is that I’m not going to descend to legalistic quibbling over it. They are both aggregators that generate little original content, and clickbait is when the title is outrageous and entices one to click but then does not discuss in the piece what was mentioned in the title. I see lack of substance more than clickbait, and more so at Huffington Post than anywhere.

So Ben Shapiro is a provocateur, is he? Or is it simply that you are provoked by him? They’re not the same, and labeling someone a provocateur rather than simply saying he’s provocative is just as much ad hominem as anything I’ve said. I referenced Yiannoloupos because he asked the cancer vs. feminism question and because a sexual indiscretion was used to smear him. I don’t even like Milo Yiannopoulos, but he’s only right when he’s right and wrong when he’s wrong based upon the facts and the merits of his arguments, not whether I like him or whether I think he’s a provocateur.

Linda Sarsour is a hypocrite. Calling for Sharia and jihad on American soil and calling oneself a feminist are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive positions. If you read my pieces this week, you’ve already seen me explain to Washburn how Islam is possibly the least feminist ideology on the face of the planet. However, I mentioned her in passing, and it was hardly the core of my argument. And again, to say that what I wrote was ad hominem is another example of the fallacy fallacy because it doesn’t disprove anything I wrote.

4) Just so you’re no longer taking my words out of context, the full statement was this: “To suggest that minimizing harm means being entirely flaccid in the face of bad ideas and their proponents is a quietist position that will inevitably lead to the eventual moral degradation of society — because who can criticize evils if ideas and groups have been determined to be invincible to criticism?” There’s already a historical precedent for what happens in the aforementioned scenario when people are not allowed to voice their concerns. It’s not a slippery slope fallacy because it follows that without the ability to criticize evils authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism historically either precede or soon follow. If it didn’t follow, it would be a non-sequitur. Furthermore, quietism or pacificism in the face of injustice are positions that allow abusers to continue to abuse. Allow more abuse with more quietism and what historically follows is what I anticipated: the moral degradation of society. Were it hypothetical, you could call it a slippery slope. Was Edmund Burke guilty of the slippery slope fallacy when he said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing?

The concurrent publication of opinion is hardly unprecedented and doesn’t prevent anyone from considering the merits of the original author’s statements on their own. If I put two pieces of paper with conflicting ideas written on them in front of you side by side, the presence of one doesn’t interfere with the presence of the other. It does not prioritize my opinion. IT gives equal weight to both. No one is going to shriek about ethical violations because there are two pieces of paper at the same time. Same for ideas. We’ve considered running point/counterpoint pieces in print, and now I can see that we would be accused of ethics violations by the easily inflamed — not that it would be enough to discourage us from doing so.

Furthermore, I refuted point after point with statistics and was met with nothing of substance whatsoever in response other than the mystifying comment that I’m somehow out of my league. Fundamental to the argument is that the AAUW’s statistics about campus rape culture and the mythical wage gap were shown to be fraudulent years ago. No one wants to talk about the facts. Shooting the messenger is so much easier.

You’ve missed the point entirely on industry ethics and continue to beat the same dead horse without explaining why it should continue to be bludgeoned so. Show a single instance of clickbait as well as point out both where I caused legitimate harm and what I wrote that is without substance and I’ll take the allegation seriously. We welcome your comments here, but if you believe that you can belittle me into silence or intimidate this paper into complicity you are wasting your time, and as a busy editor I am wasting mine. We’ll publish your letters all day long, but we won’t stop publishing anyone’s writing. As the editor I have no special access to publishing at The Independent, certainly not in the comment section. We simply do not cater to the paroxysm of every offended reader.

My statements on ethics and harm are only vague if you ignore, or disagree, with the content of my letter. The aren’t about the legalistic concerns you vaguely hint at in your last response but about the values shared by professional organizations, like those described by aformentioned SPJ.( The SPJ doesn’t enforce the code but rely on voluntary cooperation; I think we both seem to value community self-governance versus forced oversight.) Minimize harm was an obvious reference to their code of ethics. But to elaborate, it means:

1) “Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.”

2) Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort

3)Show compassion for those who may be affected by news coverage

Those define standard news reporting as much as editorials. Actually, the importance of fact and respect are considered doubly important when given the privilege to expound upon personal opinion in journalism, as greater freedom comes with greater responsibility.

I have shown examples of how I consider you to have not shown respect to the community you serve. Even those you disagree with deserve respect which includes thoughtful representation and characterizations in editorials. The manner in which you have caricatured #metoo, feminism, the people of WMW, and the LDS (just to name recent ones) is what I consider to be a type of disrespect that harms citizens in content and longterm social ramifications, like the hyperpartisanship that relies upon stereotypes.

If you disagree with that premise, fine. Constructive criticism is an investment in the Independent but ultimately it requires the organization to accept the community feedback and be interested in changing to matter. That is clearly voluntary.

Your patrons, even those of who constructively criticize your choices at the helm, want the organization to succeed. We need a thoughtful community platform that offers a platform to diverse voices and respects the community it serves. I hope we see the Independent reconsider it current trajectory as I would love nothing else than to see more public discourse about difficult subjects that affect us locally and as a nation. We may simply disagree on the details of what all of that means.

I wish you and the Independent the best of luck in 2018.

(PS…you were correct about the error about the DailyWire)

I don’t engage your counter arguments because I don’t consider them to be done in good faith. I have highlighted the way in which you mischaracterized my argument and/or replaced them with your own and then proceeded to attack the strawmen they were. (Myself, Washburn and Hyland never once used offense or identity politics in our writing. That is your dog whistling short hand).

And we are at an impasse if you continue to deny using ad hominem attacks in your writing. I have shown through example and definition how you do so. I quoted your rejection of such tools in my Letter and then observed what I believe is justification of their rhetorical use in your response, ie an entire paragraph built around the idea that “it does work as a rhetorical device.” If you want folks to engage its best to accurately reflect their ideas. That is the foundation to good faith, fact-based, and logical opinion pieces. I rarely see adherence to those basic standards in your writing.

The SPJ and its code of ethics is not “make-believe” nor did I “conjure” up the ones I highlighted in my last response (I made the error of not putting all in quotations). I have highlighted multiple times now how I believe you have harmed members of the community (corrected my language after your feedback, though I have used that language before) through not adhering to those basic concepts of respect. Misrepresentation and hostile personal attacks are a forms of harm. The SPJ claim their ethical code forms “the foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media.” The SPJ clearly thinks these principles belong in editorial sections as much as tradional news. They explicitly state members of the public deserve respect, not earn it.

To summarize, I have repeatedly highlighted examples of ad hominem attacks, strawmen and other rhetorical flaws that I believe harm members of your readership and violate the basic ethics of journalism. Nowhere have I said you can’t write passionate dissenting opinions that dismantle other’s ideas. So the claims of silencing and censorship are completely without merit. Nowhere did I state so simply that I “didn’t like the way I said what I said”, stop with the strawmen. To repeat, as I stated in my Letter, its the entire gestalt, “the organized whole”, of your essays that I consider to be inconsistent with basic journalistic ethics.

If and when I see an editor that displays respect for members of the public through good faith representations of people and their ideas then I will consider working with the Independent with regular contributions. Nothing would make me happier than to get through disagreements on editorial ethics and talk about core issues we both seem care about. But that means seeing essays and comments that don’t rely on empty rhetoric and tropes like “politically correct”, dog whistling like “virtue signaling” and the constant misrepresentation of ethical concerns into what appears to be a personal fascination with “offense”. Constantly steering intellectual concerns about journalistic ethics into your shorthand for offense is not a good faith relationship. Taunting others with passive aggressive attacks like “a one-hit wonder who just didn’t know when to stop” is not a good faith environment for others to engage.

Show us respect, not just when you think we have earned it as an editor. We are also the “real men and women” of 2018. Don’t engagee in ad hominem attacks. Accurately represent ideas you disagree with and maybe then I’ll consider more participation. Those are minimal standards for a publication that claims to be a “neutral platform” and strives to be the “community voice” (might want to reconsider your vision and even your use of the term given your concerns about homogeneity above).

Have a great 2018!

PS…I didn’t ignore the “conservative community entirely and with apparent prejudice”. If I had “completely”, its definition, ignored the conservative community I would not have included concerns for treatment of the LDS in my Letter. Stop misrepresenting my ideas. In fact, I have never made a claim about the validity of the name WMW’s name choice. That claim is fundamentally different than my constructive criticisms of your essay. This is yet another example of a lack of good faith civil discourse.

PSS..clickbait is generically considered “content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page.”. I posit that promoting a provocative headline like “Since when are all women leftist” on Facebook that has a hyperlink to your webpage to fit that definition quite well.