Column: You can talk, you can talk

Since radio talk show host Dan Yorke dropped a certain on-air bomb of an assertion about Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian's personal life, responses have been varied and sometimes seemingly self-contradictory. The contradictions don't stem from hypocrisy, but rather from complexity; it's hard to have a conversation about whether an assertion is out-of-line (it was) without repeating the assertion itself (although I'll try here; our relevant story is still on www.WarwickDailyTimes.com if you're inclined to look it up).

Matt Jerzyk, of the popular RIFuture.org blog, made his objections to Yorke's comments known almost a week ago in his post "Dan Yorke Must Go" - a sentiment echoed by many of his readers in the time since. But to express outrage over what Yorke had to say, Jerzyk had to echo it - possibly causing further inconvenience and discomfort for Avedisian, even as Jerzyk condemned Yorke for doing just that. The same could be said of our story on the matter, and if it caused Mayor Avedisian any difficulty, I offer my public apology. The man's personal life is his own, and it's regrettable that any attempt to explore the issues surrounding Yorke's comments inevitably only give them more prominence.

RIFuture.org's opposite number in the blogosphere, AnchorRising.com, took note not of what Yorke was saying, but RIFuture's indignation. Anchor Rising contributor Marc Comtois used the issue as a springboard to discuss the responsibilities of blogs, and how that responsibility compares and contrasts to shows like Yorke's. Administrator Justin Katz responded to what he called RIFuture's "hyperventilation" with a post built around it's lead: "Give me a break." RIFuture had put Yorke in the limelight despite its objections to Yorke; Anchor Rising had given RIFuture's response some play, even though Katz apparently felt the whole issue was overblown by that time.

And in the time since, Katz has raised further questions on Anchor Rising about our coverage, and its heavy citation of not just the powers-behind-the-blogs, but of the posts attached to their main articles - as the online response was the catalyst and central theme of our story. For those of you who are keeping track, at this point we've got new media (Anchor Rising) commenting on old media (the Warwick Daily Times), which was reporting on how new media (RIFuture, and later Anchor Rising) commented on old media (Yorke's

show).

There's a tiny bit of irony in Katz' entirely fair questions, which were about how useful and fair it is to significantly reference blog comments that can be posted anonymously, and about what credibility traditional media like the Daily Times may be lending faceless and unaccountable men on the digital street. After all, blogs like Anchor Rising are the forms of media most directly responsible for exposing those anonymous posters to the world, for anyone with a Web browser to see. We take it as a given that anonymous Web posts should be taken with a grain, perhaps a heaping pound, of salt; is it less obvious that's the case when a more conventional medium refers back to a Web post? As Katz also notes, the dynamic of the blogs could lend itself to more completely free expression about taboo topics. He raises interesting points, and they're worth exploring further.

It's a credit to both Katz and Jerzyk (both of whom participated in our coverage as sources) that they've been able to turn an insensitive comment by an often-abrasive talk show host into an intelligent discussion on the responsibilities of media, Internet-age, transistor-age and printing-press-age alike. It's just too bad our local Imus-of-the-moment didn't put quite as much thought into what he had to say.