Why did you print that hateful thing?
Every so often, the Times' Opinion pages run something so provocative and controversial, even non-readers say they're canceling their subscriptions. The latest example was Sunday's Op-Ed by Charlotte Allen, in which the author went after atheists with broad-brushed spite. If you will allow me to make a sweeping generalization, opinion pieces that make such sweeping generalizations are laughably easy to debunk. They may have an element of truth, but it's wrapped in an assertion that takes moments to disprove.
So why run them? Let me answer that as an outsider on the Op-Ed decision-making process, but as a regular reader of the results. (And yes, I do have to pay for my subscription.) The goal of the page is to get you to think about important things. Some pieces try to do that by telling you something you didn't know but should be concerned about; others take a familiar topic and try to make you look at them in a new way. Allen isn't the first to take the gloves off, or to use hyperbole as a way to get readers to sharpen the edges of an issue. Although we're not exactly Provacteurs Inc., we regularly run pointed material from the likes of Bill Maher. Nor do theists have a monopoly on our page. In addition to the aforementioned Maher, see, e.g., our Sam Harris op-ed from a couple years ago, which ran on Christmas Eve. How's that for provocative?
Find us guilty, then, of running material that occasionally pushes your buttons harder than you care to have them pushed. By inspiring you to defend your beliefs, we hope we're also prodding you to think about them. It's not necessarily to change your mind; believe me, we're not invested in the outcome of your debate over whether there is a God. (From the capitalization, you can tell where I stand on that issue. I'm not going to debate you on the merits of faith over empiricism, I just hope you'll find your way to my side some day.) Nor are we trying to generate controversy in order to sell newspapers (that's not our job, it's the circulation department's) or advertisements (that's why we have ad sales people). As an opinion section, our role is to stimulate you to have new opinions and defend the ones you already hold. In this changed era of newspapering, we also hope that you will interact with us and each other on these topics. If we have any grubby capitalistic motive here, it would be to build a bigger audience of regular readers, which our friends in the ad sales department may some day find a way to monetize. We do that by sharing the views of interesting, thought-provoking and, in some cases, infuriating writers.
I recognize that the imprimatur of a big newspaper brand increases the sting of denunciations like Allen's. We're not merely the conduit for her views, we're the soapbox, the amplifier. But her piece, like all Op-Eds, should be considered in the continuum of opinions offered on that page. That's not to say you shouldn't complain when we run a piece that goes too far. It's just a reminder that there is a mix of voices, day in and day out (with counterpoints, too, such as this response to Allen by P.Z. Myers). I don't like stridency as a reader, but I don't like agreeability, either. I want to be pushed, because that makes me think.
Regardles of where I stand, I just don't think that Allen's piece came close to meeing the standards of a major publication. Flat out, it was poorly written. I do like a lively opinion section that will 'push my buttons,' I do like being challenged, but I thought that her column nothing but a bunch of juvenile name-calling.
Posted by: OceanBeach | May 22, 2009 at 09:38 AM
I'm shocked that people would cancel their subscriptions based solely on this article. Most atheists I know, myself included, view freedom of speech and expression as 'sacred' as many theists do their holy commandments. Yes, the article was somewhat offensive, so what? Theists have just as much right to offend us as we do them. The LAT was not claiming this to be their opinion - they allowed comments and even a response from P.Z. Myers himself. Let the theists spread their (albeit nonsensical and often hateful) beliefs, as long as they're not forcing us to accept them. (Hint: There's a little 'x' in the corner of the screen, feel free to click it whenever you get offended.) It gives us more time to tear down their arguments anyway, as P.Z. Myers did so well.
Posted by: Mel | May 22, 2009 at 09:41 AM
Fairly put sir.
Posted by: Goodcat | May 22, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Hi Jon,
Thanks for this. I am skeptical of your claim that the Times is not "trying to generate controversy in order to sell newspapers", especially in these times where many media outlets' circulation count is down, but that's not relevant to my question, and I agree with the remainder of your point about fostering good discourse.
I am specifically writing to find out the Times' policy on allowing or disallowing comments on a per-article basis in the Opinion section. I searched high and low, and could not find the policy regarding this.
It is especially pointed in this case, as there is a very long history of one side seeking to disallow direct responses, and the other seeking to engage and foster conversation.
Could you share with us the Times' official policy on this matter? Is this an editorial policy, or is it up to the individual Opinion piece authors?
Thank you.
Posted by: Jeremy | May 22, 2009 at 10:35 AM
This excuse for an article did in fact go way over the line of acceptability into the realm of inflammatory bigotry. Just substitute 'homosexuals' or 'Jews' for 'atheists' and see how it reads. The Times is better than this - or used to be.
Posted by: Jeff | May 22, 2009 at 02:28 PM
Since Allen's piece is indeed an Op-ed, I wouldn't look to complain about someone's freedom of speech, no matter how misguided I might think the author is in her intentions. As a former reporter, I do understand the real value of the right to free speech, one which we should all share, and sadly, do not always.
I will, however, admit that Ms. Allen's opinion certainly did make me think -- as well as push a button, to which Healey alludes in his commentary. In fact, I would find it almost impossible, given my family history, not to experience a visceral reaction to Allen's glib assumption that atheists
"...insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity.",
were somehow as simple as,
"What -- did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?"
No, Ms. Allen, if only! Some of us, who were raised as roman catholic's and now find ourselves peaceful atheists, frequently suffered more phsyical and emotional torture at the hands of a church than simply having our tooshies spanked by a Sunday school teacher. Some of us experienced years of abuse at the hands of those who claimed it was all "god's will." Some of us watched our dear parents become severely mentally ill and non functional, and finally pass away, in response to family and church abuse so intense and systematic that they were unable to maintain an identity, or even a will, of their own.
Am I angry? Not anymore. I was at the time I struggled to hold on desparately to beliefs that were bogus, and to try and reconcile them with what I knew in my brain to be the reality as an adult. Now, it is not anger that causes the visceral reaction when I see this kind of assumption, supposedly meant to make us laugh or not, or sell newspapers or not? Instead, I am simply saddened that the cycles of abuse inherent in structured religion, whether christian or other, are continued to be glossed over, hidden, protected, excused and covered up by speaking of this debate so lightly; and, by pegging this "vocal" minority of Americans who have freed themselves from religious terrorism and embraced a joyful, moral life without the need to believe in an omnipotent being, as simply angry or boring. Those of us who have had first-hand experience with religious terrorism on our own soil, and in our own households, have much more to bring to this debate than emotion or lack of entertainment value.
This debate is not about faith, for you can not debate something which has no fact or proof to its claim, but it is about sanity, reason, knowledge and ultimately, our right to live free of religiously protected abuses, whether as a child or adult.
Posted by: Roxy | May 22, 2009 at 04:42 PM
Hi Jeremy -- this is going to sound silly, but it's the reality of our situation. We don't put comment boards on *any* weekend pieces because we don't have enough people to run weekend shifts moderating comments. That's also why comments posted late at night or early in the morning take hours to appear -- we don't have enough people to moderate 24/7. And we have to moderate comments because a small but non-trivial percentage of the stuff people submit is laced with profanity or, less frequently, hate speech. Sigh. Lousy excuse, I know, but I take some satisfaction in the fact that we now have comment boards on every piece that runs Monday through Friday. That's only in the opinion section, by the way -- we're the only part of the newspaper that does this.
Sorry for the delayed response, and thanks for reading.
Posted by: Jon Healey | May 22, 2009 at 04:49 PM
Jon, fair enough, that's a reasonable explanation. Thanks for taking the time to respond after hours, regardless. :-)
Posted by: Jeremy | May 22, 2009 at 09:05 PM
Here is what I believe happened.
Charlotte Allen's book publisher was owed a favor from the L.A. Times.
Her book is treading water.
Publishers Weekly calls it "superficial scholarship" with insupportable generalizations".
The remedy;
lob an offensive attack on a strawman,
wait for the rebuttal,
and watch the ignorant faithful defend their messiah.
It's just a sleasy scam to direct attention to her book.
Posted by: William | May 22, 2009 at 10:58 PM
Save face and just apologize for printing Allen's hateful diatribe. Pretending it was thought-provoking hyperbole and implying we're to blame for taking offense is only digging yourself in deeper.
Posted by: Buffy | May 23, 2009 at 05:29 AM
I read the piece, found it silly, and then went to her opponent's (if that's the proper word) P.Z. Myers's blog, that I found much more interesting. So it happens that Mrs. Allen's paper backfired somehow. No real damage, as I am a foreigner, a Frenchman at that, and I take this creationist views as fun. I cannot listen to Mr. Limbaugh, (I guess I would not understand a word anyway) so I used this piece as a proxy to entertainment....
Posted by: Jean-ollivier | May 23, 2009 at 05:35 AM
I do not expect this newspaper or any newspaper to only publish opinions that I find agreeable. I don't even expect nor do I think I have the right to read without sometimes being outraged. However what this column has laid bareis the double standard that exists that allows the vilification of atheists, a double standard that the LA Times apparently has no problem with.
Please anyone feel free to point me to a column that this paper has published in recent memory where the writer frontally attacked all Jews, or Muslims, or blacks. Point me to the column saying "What's wrong with blacks, did their white school-teachers spank them when they were young?" or the column that says "Muslims are all just angry and playing the victim, whining bores". Such a column would never pass editorial muster, but when the target is atheists it is considered a valid controversy.
I eagerly await the LA Times column by David Duke explaining why blacks are inferior to whites and later the next column identifying Jews as money-grubbing arrogant swine. After all, it's just "controversy", right?
Posted by: Claudia | May 23, 2009 at 05:49 AM
Oddly, I find pretty much the same annoying behavior from zealot believers and zealot atheists. But, you don't see me filing lawsuits to shut either of them up. The constitution doesn't contain a Freedom of Annoyance amendment.
Posted by: bruce lerner | May 23, 2009 at 06:00 AM
"Just substitute 'homosexuals' or 'Jews' for 'atheists' and see how it reads."
Firstly, it would read as dishonest, because the leaders of Judaism and the gay rights movement aren't going around calling everyone else on the planet deluded, idiotic, and poisonous, and suggesting that they are too irrational to hold public office (which Maher has stated explicitly, during an interview with Conan O'Brien).
Missionary atheism is a wholly negative attack philosophy; it is not merely the absence of belief, it is the aggressive negation of the views of others. It's like Catholic anti-Semitism without any of the good of Catholicism, or Jewish Islamophobia without any of the good of Judaism, because atheism in itself has nothing to offer but antagonism ... except when trying fraudulently to equate itself with another philosophy like rationalism or humanism in order to parasitize its legitimacy.
The sorts of frauds, slanders, and hate speech atheists regularly spew are named as such when they fall from the mouths and pens of bigots from other sectarian extremes. It's about time this double standard ended.
Posted by: Nelson Leith | May 23, 2009 at 09:31 AM
"As an opinion section, our role is to stimulate you to have new opinions and defend the ones you already hold. "
Perhaps you would be better served allowing comments to specious articles such as Allen's. Not having a comment section on those articles you expect to provoke thought kind of renders your "role" pointless.
Posted by: DJ | May 23, 2009 at 10:10 AM
Agreed w/"Ocean Beach" Allen's piece was poorly written, and not just in argumentation. The phrase "way old" made her sound like she'd walked straight from Venice Beach to a keyboard.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | May 23, 2009 at 10:28 AM
I think Hemant Mehta put it most succinctly and I can't imagine why the editor has failed to respond to his central point, which was:
"If you replaced the word “atheist” with the word “Jew” in her piece, there would’ve been an uproar on a national level. "
THAT should be clear enough even to Mr. Healey. And if his journalistic ethics don't plumb to those depths, perhaps the LAT should seek to fill that void.
Posted by: Ben | May 23, 2009 at 10:46 AM
I agree that Charlotte Allen painted atheists with too broad a brush in her Opinion Editorial piece and thus engaged in at least moderate anti-atheist bigotry. Most ironically it seems quite clear from her Op/Ed "rant" that it was the intolerance and bigotry of what I often term "fundamentalist atheists", and sometimes even Atheist Supremacists where this is warranted. . . that provoked her public attack which did not distinguish such intolerant and indeed bigoted atheist zealots such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and P. Z. Myers et al from the more moderate mainstream of atheists who have no great quarrel with believers and seek only to be allowed to adhere to their atheistic world view in peace, if not a reasonable amount of acceptance and even some respect. In fact it seems that a rather bigoted statement made by that world-famous pompous ASS* Richard Dawkins in a recent interview is what set Charlotte off. If she had only inserted the word fundamentalist before atheists or had substituted the term "Atheist Supremacists" for atheists in the following telling statement should could not justifiably be accused of anti-atheist intolerance, prejudice or bigotry at all -
:Maybe atheists wouldn't be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God. This is a favorite Dawkins theme. In a recent interview with Trina Hoaks, the atheist blogger for the Examiner.com website, Dawkins described religious believers as follows: "They feel uneducated, which they are; often rather stupid, which they are; inferior, which they are; and paranoid about pointy-headed intellectuals from the East Coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do." Thanks, Richard!
As we can readily see, professor Richard Dawkins is in full Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson mode here in suggesting that God believing people are uneducated, "rather stupid", and even altogether *inferior* human beings. . . Where have I heard talk of *inferior* human beings before? Yes, Charlotte Allen "misspoke" in painting all atheists with too broad a brush, but Richard Dawkins' rather disturbing Atheist Supremacism, as evidenced by these and other well documented public statements, seems to me to be a rather worse form of intolerance and bigotry. Thank God Richard Dawkins is only a 21st century university professor rather than a high ranking politician in the Stalinist Soviet Union or Maoist China. . .
* Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson
Posted by: Robin Edgar | May 23, 2009 at 11:44 AM
The Latimes did something that it needed to do- give the other side.
Us poor religionists are sick and tired of being called stupid and dumb due to our beliefs. Radical atheism wants us to be put in jail or call it child abuse to teach our kids that God is real.
Get in our face and we will get in yours.
It's okay to be atheist, but to call out people for their faith in the manner people like Harris and Hitchins do- that crosses the line, and Allen was right to point it out. Atheists have a chip on their shoulder, and it ain't pretty.
Posted by: Dave S | May 23, 2009 at 12:50 PM
@DJ -- see my response to Jeremy, above.
Posted by: Jon Healey | May 23, 2009 at 06:06 PM
@Ben -- Thanks for the promotion, but I'm no editor. Read the post again. I'm just an editorial writer, and I have no connection to the Op-Ed folks other than occupying an office next to theirs. It was presumptuous of me even to talk about the raison d'etre of an Op-Ed page. But I contribute to the Opinion L.A. blog and the Op-Ed folks don't, and after reading the comments on Paul Thornton's post, I felt it was important to rebut the meme that we ran Allen's work in a crass attempt to sell newspapers.
Posted by: Jon Healey | May 23, 2009 at 06:15 PM
Dave S -
Give me a reason to respect your faith and I might.
Posted by: MikeTheInfidel | May 23, 2009 at 09:02 PM
It's not her position that is the problem, it's the fact that he argument was juvenile enough to embarrass the occupants of a school playground.
Let's be honest it's hardly going to be a shock to anyone that most people believe in god and that a significant number of those people don't like it when other's challenge their view, but that doesn't justify giving column space to someone who expresses the latter position in such a moronic fashion.
Posted by: C, London | May 24, 2009 at 06:40 AM
Opinion pieces like this one make reading the paper fascinating! And this was an excellent choice because there are tons of books right now written by atheists telling believers how wrong and dumb there are...so naturally, the other side gets a say.
It was a great article. I am not a heavy "believer" but she was right in what she said.
My goodness, atheists have such thin skin! Have some sense of humor about yourselves!
Posted by: Soliel | May 24, 2009 at 06:41 AM
People who say atheists have a "thin skin" clearly have no idea what it's like to live as an atheist in this God-crazed country. It's not about the name-calling (we're used to being called "Satanists" for simply not believing in God); many of us have faced actual discrimination, such as being fired, ostracized, and deemed a bad influence on children merely for using reason to run our lives.
Posted by: CD | May 24, 2009 at 11:03 AM
"That's also why comments posted late at night or early in the morning take hours to appear -- we don't have enough people to moderate 24/7. And we have to moderate comments because a small but non-trivial percentage of the stuff people submit is laced with profanity or, less frequently, hate speech. "
Yet you have no qualms about publishing an opinion piece that is nothing more than a venomous, fact-starved screed of hate speech? The irony......
Posted by: Lowell | May 24, 2009 at 01:57 PM
I honestly didn't think that Allen's article stimulated the readers to think about controversial topics; instead, as I was reading the article, it just made me realize that he was writing the article out of spite. It seemed that Allen just picked out out-of-context quotes and twisted them to support his arguments, and as an Atheist, i don't believe anything Allen said was correct. He just seemed to be pointing out the minority of Atheists who whine and bring up trivial topics...
Posted by: KJ Lee | May 24, 2009 at 05:27 PM
Regardless of the content, Charlotte Allen's opinion was put together in such a juvenile fashion, I could not finish it. That is why it should not have been published.
And in response to Dave S., religion has been attacking non-religion since it's dawn, so this "Get in our face and we will get in yours" business is really backwards. It should read, "get in our face about getting in your face and we will, once again, get in yours." What you said would also be considered playing the victim, which was one of the things Allen said atheists do...
As a side note, I'm not an atheist, nor do I follow any structured religions.
Posted by: Makh | May 24, 2009 at 05:42 PM
I thought it was a stupid column too, but I'm not so convinced that the times wasn't motivated by the bottom line. If they were so willing to tick off people on all sides, they'd have raised a tough question or two about the return of Yusuf (AKA Cat Stevens) and whether he has really moderated his extremist views. The Times would have been perfectly willing to tick off Muslims, but an entertainer? No way.
Posted by: lrg | May 24, 2009 at 08:04 PM
If you haven't already, you should read this:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/05/23/backlash-against-the-charlotte-allen-anti-atheist-piece-in-the-la-times-part-4/
I have nothing to say except that I agree with Hemant. You say you want to build a bigger audience; consider this audience member lost. Your slipping credibility is showing.
Posted by: Muse142 | May 24, 2009 at 10:38 PM
Looks like Allen took a page out Ann Coulter's book. Drum up enough negative press so people will flock to read her book and see how horrible the rest of her commentary is. Shameless, really.
Posted by: Vicky W. | May 24, 2009 at 11:37 PM
You are meaning to tell me there are readers who have put up with Jonah Goldberg's recycled nonsense for years but are now canceling subscriptions because someone attacked Dawkins? Weird.
Posted by: christian h. | May 25, 2009 at 09:15 AM
Let me begin by saying that I respect the LA Times, and their ongoing struggle to stay profitable in a changing world. However, I do have a serious objection to the claim that the Op-Ed editors printed this in an effort to spark invigorating discourse, rather than spark controversy in the hope of selling papers.
Once I read the article, and after I retrieved myself from a state of shock, I immediately wrote a response to Allen's hateful tirade. A rebuttal, I might add, that was a hundred fold more fit to print than Allen's rant. The LA Times wouldn't run it.
This is the very problem with what the Op-Ed page has done: we are banished to discussing this, one of the most important issues of our time, on a blog page, instead of discussing this where all who read the Allen's article might consider our differing opinions. THAT is not "discourse."
Is it that surprising, then, that the LA Times will not admit to running an article that was unfit for publication, or run in an attempt to stir up sales numbers? It is a business after all.
Here's the problem: yes it's a business, and yes it should try to be profitable, but the reason it's held our respect and loyalty for years, has been its credibility... Every time I see an article such as Allen's run, even blocked from true discourse, that credibility wanes. And it doesn't go bit-by-bit, it goes block-by-block. I am far less encouraged to stick with a subscription at this point. Maybe that will change in the future, but for now, I'm an "angry atheist."
Posted by: Landon Ross | May 25, 2009 at 01:52 PM
Freedom of press. Freedom of expression. Freedom of religion. All good things. Sadly it is religion - organized religion in general and fundamentalist religions in particular - that works tirelessly to end those good things and replace our open and inclusive public values with their own restrictive and stupid ones. Religious values are based on fiction and superstition, and their purpose is to control and dominate people from cradle to grave. International criminal organizations such as the Catholic Church dedicate themselves to overpopulating our already overwhelmed planet with more poor believers to enrich them, while systematically raping children unfortunate enough to be in their care. Therefor it is good and right to point at Charlotte Allen and laugh aloud. Fine of you to print her reprehensibly wrong and stupid views. Fine as well to call them what they are.
Posted by: Albert Fensterkaput | May 25, 2009 at 02:26 PM
I used to have an acquaintence who would pick a random person and punch their shoulder.
They'd punch him back.
Then he'd punch them again and say, "There. Now we're even."
That's what religious people have done to everyone else. You have oppressed us for centuries. We are the ones fighting back, not you. You have tortured, killed, brutalized and subjugated millions of human beings because of your stupid, unjustifited superstitions for centuries. Let us speak for once.
And if you wish to criticize us, do it properly instead of just calling us the names that can more accurately be applied to yourselves.
Posted by: Alan | May 26, 2009 at 04:11 AM
@ Jon,
I recognize the economic challenges you guys are going through nowadays, and wish you well.
But I don't think that you can run pieces like Allen's one one day and then later expect your readers to believe you when you say that you're just trying to prod your readers into reconsidering their views or sharpen their thinking.
What I got from the article was that it was very flawed from the outset, it was deliberately offensive with no reason for being that way other than that there are atheist offenders out there, and that somehow I and my fellow non-theists are "boring".
Is this the way for a paper to promote discourse, what with tit-for-tat namecalling here, and adolescent pique from an aging harpy there? Methinks it's about circulation, despite what you claim.
Posted by: Bryan D. | May 26, 2009 at 08:27 AM
If quoting the opposition, as the majority of this article is devoted to, is somehow deeply offensive, I wonder how these people would react if he actually strongly defended his viewpoint?
Ok, he said Atheists were boring and offered examples. Not exactly hate speech. If this mild article offends anyone, they must think they are privileged.
Posted by: JustAJoe | May 27, 2009 at 09:30 PM
That article was perhaps not the best articulated but she makes a point.
Ever since Dawkins et al. have been getting press, people have jumped onto the "Atheist Victimology" bandwagon. Heck, I know a friend that constaaaaaaaantly raves about religion, religious politicians, gets red in the face and never stops.
It got to the point where we told him we appreciated his passion but can he tone it down, especially around people with a variety of backgrounds?
Religion does not necessarily impair critical thinking or dumb you down. There are many, many intelligent people who can reason it out, use their intuition in other cases as well.
When I hear that Atheists are 'winning', what are they 'winning'? If the PResidency is the goal then conciliation fron both sides will be needed. If friendship and acceptance is the goal, same thing.
I welcome any Atheists and respect them, I only expect that they respect others' beliefs and that we thus can operate in a fantastic democracy, using our innate talents and intelligence to further our lives.
Posted by: Greg | May 30, 2009 at 09:41 PM