Somebody asked recently why we sometimes write articles critical of individuals here in the city we call Babel. The person understood the criticism of Conservative politicians. He thought they were fair game. The concern was about people in Babel who might be upset about something written about them. The question asked was, “Don’t you want those people to like you?”
This took some explanation. First of all, the questioner needed to be reminded of why we write this blog. Nobody pays us to write it. It is written for fun and it is a sample of our writing skills. It produces an occasional writing assignment. We do not run advertising as we easily cover the cost of the blog and we like the cleanness of the appearance of Babel-on-the-Bay. To be effective in this, the material has to be a bit controversial. It has to be edgy. It needs to be noticed.
And anything written in this blog is written as what is called ‘fair comment.’ We are well aware of—and quite respectful—of the laws related to libel and slander and have kept abreast of recent rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada that have reduced the ability of people with lots of money to use what is called ‘libel chill’ to keep people from questioning some of their public actions. A former Canadian, publisher Conrad Black was quite expert at that until he ran afoul of a Chicago prosecutor who put him on the sidelines for a while.
And, yes, we do care if some public people in Babel are not pleased with our comments. They have our telephone number and are welcome to call us anytime to discuss what we have written with which they might disagree. We are also more than willing to discuss the terrible state of journalism in this community. It is quite shocking.
But we have more questions to ask than just about people’s feelings about our blog. We would dearly love to hear from some of our readers in Beirut as to why we have had a twelve-fold increase in readers in that part of the world. (It could be a relay point for some recent spam.) Heck, we have never figured out why we have more readers in Kitchener/Waterloo than we do in Montreal.
The analytics that are available to bloggers are quite fascinating but the reality for the work we do on Babel-on-the-Bay is how much work we get from it. We rarely blow our own horn but we have been known as one of the best speechwriters in Canada for many years. There are still a few companies that would not have any other writer work on their product catalogues. There is not much demand for literate newsletters in Babel but that was one of our mainstays for many years and we would love to do more.
That is one of the beauties of the Internet. It hardly matters where the customer resides. We have easy and fast communication. We can be paid through PayPal and never worry if the cheque is in the mail. We love to write. If you have the need, try us.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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