New York Times gatekeepers don’t want you to read this. They’re supposed to be anonymous. Sorry. But I just can’t join the Satisfied With Ourselves Party. There’s hardly a voice you publish that takes a solid look at journalism and it’s conflicted relationship with comments. Let’s Have A Hug For Comments, and then when we bounce off a piece by one of your writers, the uncivility cops arrive.

Being civil can mean telling it like it is so as to inform citizens – the latin being civis, and the meaning of the term has a gravitas that symbolizes more than a location, but under law establishes responsibility in the body politic – the New York Times gatekeepers are looking for homogeneity, agreement, the superficial, and fiddledeedee.

Your gatekeepers are stuck in a rut of sameness, a parochial take on what is and is not civil, and often, they are offended by words like gatekeeper (they see themselves as keepers of the peace) and those of us who do not hold the proper gatekeeping POV, are shut down and kicked into the street. To be uncivil is to be silent. To be uncivil is to be indifferent. To be uncivil is to give up and surrender one’s voice to usually a Victorian agreement that the prevailing viewpoints must hang on the skeleton of an entire culture that works for the paternalistic hierarchy where journalism is the etiquette of We Must All Agree On This And If Not, You Will Be Banished.

The credo of the pompous gatekeeper. We need voices of introspection. Not censorship.  

We need voices of introspection. Not censorship.