Earlier this week, The Mercury published a letter to the editor from a local woman. The letter began, "I wanted to share with you my cousin Jeff's impression ..."
After the letter appeared in the paper, we received a number of emails and letters informing us that the published letter was actually an Internet posting that has been circulating for months. The local letter writer probably does not even have a cousin named Jeff.
Those complaining chastize the newspaper staff for not doing a better job of vetting the letters we publish. The complaint is valid; the problem is we do not have a foolproof solution. And, the lament -- at least mine -- is that the strengths of the Internet are outweighed by this weakness to take a story, usually fictitious, and spread it as truth to damage a person's reputation.
Unfortunately, we can't always see through the chain letters and Internet ramblings posed as letters that we receive. We realize, in the midst of this wild campaign season, that we will be very vulnerable to unknowingly violating our policies of not printing chain letters or letters written by someone other than the local person who submits it. We are on the watch for this, but a letter doesn't always look, smell or talk like the duck that it is.
My email is clogged every day right now with about seven times the normal volume of nonsense from political campaigns and frantic cries for publicity.
(I continue to be amazed by how many people want the attention of newspaper editors, even as they fail to read newspapers, decry our credibility, predict our demise and refuse to spend 75 cents to see what we had to offer today. They seem to think someone pays attention to us, though, the way they clamor.)
I often receive a dozen or so letters in one day sent to my email address and addressed to "The Mercury Headquarters 24 N. Hanover St. Pottstown PA". These are clearly addressed from a provided list. However, even in those cases, I can't accurately determine if the text is original or if the message was provided along with the address. Rarely are letters carbon-copies of each other, which would automatically tag them as unoriginal.
Sometimes, when confirming a letter-writer's name by phone, which we do for all letters, we ask if they really wrote the letter or if it is an Internet post. Sometimes, they tell the truth.
In the case of the one that slipped by us last week, we apologize for not catching it. We do not want to be the purveyors of false information, and we do not want our readers to lack confidence in our ability to see through the Internet nonsense.
But, we also know that with the volume of letters we are receiving from supporters of both candidates, without even addressing the opinions in SoundOff, the chance remains that someone will pull one over on us.
In this case, other readers caught the mistake immediately and let us know. We invite you to continue to work with us and police these opinions.
The Opinion page letters are intended for the opinions of local people. Help us keep it that way.