Leave the mud at the door

Monroe County has given me a smooth ride on the welcome wagon so far, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
Folks around these parts are a friendly bunch. They wish you a good morning. They offer a friendly hello when you pass by. They *gasp* make eye contact.
That really doesn’t happen much back in La Crosse unless someone is in customer service and obligated to greet everyone, and even then the sincerity is usually suspect.
This newspaper has been extremely welcoming to me. I came in on my first day not having met anyone but Greg and Kyle Evans and almost immediately felt like this was a place I could call home for eight or so hours a day. I felt respected and encouraged by everyone I met.
Newsrooms like these are hard to find. Communities like these are equally elusive.
And I think this environment reflects the county on the whole. Kwik Trip clerks seem sincere when they ask how your day is going. The folks who come into the office for printing services or to find a back issue are patient and pleasant. Even the woman who served me my first tacos from the taco stand in the former Tastee Treat wore a smile that made me feel appreciated.
My first interview, with dispatcher Shelly Muller and her supervisor Mike Thompson, restored my faith in humanity. They absolutely love helping people in bad situations.
My most recent interview with Mary Hyde, an entrepreneur who makes it her mission to put smiles on children’s faces with her Bedtime Books and Buddies, left me in awe of the purity in her heart.
We’re friendly because it feels good to make others feel good. It’s the kind of thing that makes society go ’round.
So why, then, do we sometimes behave badly? What is the driving force behind purposefully attacking a person’s opinion or their good name?
When we’re bad, we’re very, very bad.
There has been some scurrilous activity in our letters to the editor lately, and I don’t think it’s reflective of who we are as a whole.
I feel it’s a very small portion of our readership that is acting in bad faith in our letters to the editor section, and that’s why I am moving to extinguish the toxic fire of personal attacks on our pages.
My first official decision as editor of this paper probably won’t make me very popular with a certain subset of our community. But it’s necessary, in my eyes, to promote the goodwill I know we’re all capable of.
And here is where I’ve buried the lead: In order to foster an environment where people feel safe to express their opinions, we will limit letter writers to one letter a month. We’ll do this to encourage a more diverse pool of opinions and so community members can feel free to express those opinions without fear of being personally attacked in our paper.
Starting Dec. 1, the first letter a writer submits will be their one allotted letter for that calendar month. In other words, choose your words and your timing wisely. We will publish our updated policy on every opinion page as a reminder. Please also note you must include your address and a phone number for verification. Letters will not be published without this information.
This may rankle a handful of regular writers, but I suspect others who have been closing their eyes and plugging their ears at the cacophony may breathe a sigh of relief. And hopefully begin to enjoy the opinion page again.
When you address people in your letters, let it not be with sarcasm or disingenuousness or condescension.
The mud-slinging has to stop.
To be clear, we are not quashing your right to free speech on whatever subject you choose to write. Conservative, liberal, somewhere in between, your opinion is welcome. But when you name someone in your letter, please do it without sarcasm and condescension. Address people respectfully, as you would want to be addressed by someone you don’t know.
We all deal with enough personal problems on any given day that can leave us feeling down and defeated. Let’s not add to anyone’s list.