A letter from a Great Neck resident was one among dozens published every week in the Blank Slate Media papers, but it came to the attention of a Washington Post reporter working on an article about the state of opinion sections in local newspapers.
In the Post story, written by Elahe Izadi and published online with the title “They wanted to hear their readers’ opinions. Then the pro-slavery guy wrote a letter to the editor,” publishers and editors from newspapers in Buffalo and Cayuga County, both in New York; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Orlando, Florida; and Park City, Utah, discussed their experiences with controversial submissions to their “Letter to the Editor” sections.
As part of the story, Izadi quoted from a letter written by Great Neck News reader Joan Swirsky.
Her article said Blank Slate Media “published a letter from a reader who described racial-justice protesters as ‘Marxist-inspired radicals – Antifa and Black Lives Matters’ running a ‘professionally orchestrated, bountifully financed rampage’ of America’s cities and suburbs.”
“Another upset reader responded with his own letter, taking aim not just at the original letter-writer but the paper, arguing that such opinions ‘validated by publication, only stoke discord and further erode our already vulnerable democracy.'”
Izadi then wrote that publisher Steven Blank “defends the ‘Readers Write’ section as a way to inform readers about what their neighbors think, ‘even if it’s extreme’ — and that’s different, he says, than giving a platform to dangerous ideas without challenge.”
“In a perfect world, you have people who will respond and counter those ideas,” Blank told The Post. “We know those ideas are out there. It’s not that we’re introducing something into the body politic. These are prejudices that have been there forever.”
Swirsky, an author and writer who has contributed to The New York Times and Newsday, among other publications, replied to the Post story in an email to Blank Slate Media.
