The right of response

Being in planes and trains and meetings all day, I haven’t been able to join in the discussion that I’m sure is raging about Tom Friedman’s shock & awe against GM and their jihad back. After he attacked GM, GM couldn’t get a full response as a letter to the editor (what a silly name for it, by the way… isn’t it a letter to the public… but only if it gets published by that editor). So GM Letters to the editor: Return to sender“>retaliated on their blog. And now Friedman fires back from The Times (though some of his bullets hit that pay wall now). It shows what an inadequate medium for debate and discussion a newspaper is. Whichever team you’re rooting for here, there’s no debating that it would be better to hold a fair and equal discussion. That’s happening online. But note that GM links to Friedman but Friedman doesn’t link to GM. In our new etiquette of online discussion, that’s just rude — to the other side and the people some still call the audience.