	Bob Hostetler > Writing

Speaking Up and Spouting Off

by Bob Hostetler

There are many ways to speak up-or spout off, if you prefer-these days.

You can stand on the steps of the Butler County Courthouse and let your voice be heard, and if your ideas or eloquence are sufficiently robust to gain an audience, you may even draw a crowd. Due to a nifty old document known as the Constitution of the United States of America, no one can prevent you from speaking freely in public, even if your views are unpopular.

You may prefer, however, to call a radio talk show and let your views be broadcast far beyond the range of your own vocal chords. If you can get through, of course, and convince the call screener or whomever answers the phone that your opinion might make for interesting radio.

For decades, another option available to you has been to craft a letter to the editor of the Journal-News and, if your identity is confirmed and space and editorial judgment permit, your thoughts can be immortalized in print…and subject to the slings and arrows of reader reaction. Of course, if you offend or inflame someone in that forum, because your name is signed, you might have to watch your back the next time you wear your softball jersey to get some ice cream at Flub's.

In recent months, the Journal-News introduced yet another way to regularly include reader opinion in the pages of the paper: Community Voice. You can simply call a local phone number, dial an extension, listen to recorded instructions, and then record forty-five seconds' worth of your studied opinion (or crazed diatribe, take your pick) on practically any subject. The anonymous messages people record are soon after printed somewhere on the Journal-News Opinion page. Callers can and do spout off on nearly any topic, lambasting or applauding various local and national politicians, parents, art works, columnists, editorial decisions, public projects, school boards, etc.

Not surprisingly, some of the dumbest remarks in the newspaper (not all, as this column may often demonstrate) appear in the Community Voice. Sometimes the comments seem dangerously ignorant or defamatory. On the other hand, they sometimes smack of common sense (which is admittedly uncommon these days). And every great once in a while, a caller utters a more or less original perspective.

This relatively new feature has not surprisingly prompted some readers to publicly condemn the Community Voice as a terrible innovation, a waste of space. And much of the time, it is. I've never put much stock in anonymous sentiments, anyway; a person who signs his or her name to a thought invites a certain accountability that the anonymous writer or caller does not. Nor does a phone call allow the same opportunity to think through an idea or sentiment (I especially enjoyed the caller last week who lamented, "How quick we are to forget how the great Democratic President F.D.R. got us out of the mess of the depression," which prompted me to think, If sixty years is "quick to forget," I need to start taking that Ginkgo Biloba stuff, because I keep forgetting my kids' cell phone numbers). But then, not everyone can think logically and speak intelligently…even fewer, I imagine, can do it into a telephone in forty-five second sound bites.

But how appropriate this Independence Day to recall that our national ideal is predicated on freedom of speech, the free exchange of ideas, the right of everyone and anyone to let his or her opinions be heard, whether or not those opinions have any merit. It's a worthy ambition to wish to effectively express one's self. It's a worthwhile objective for the Journal-News to facilitate such expression. And it's a moral, reasonable pursuit for every reader to decide for himself or herself which ideas and opinions-whether signed or unsigned, written or oral, whether well-thought-out or off-the-cuff-are worthy of acceptance and which are not.

So maybe the Community Voice is the Town Hall meeting of a busy population, a way to speak up in a forum where everyone gets equal time. Or maybe it's just a way to spout off without anyone knowing who you are. In any case, it seems to me to be quintessentially American. And that's a good thing.

This article appeared in the July 4, 2003 edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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