Surfside News Letter in Poor Taste

I have been on vacation the past few days in beautiful Boston, Mass. (it has been in the 40s all week, so no snow for me) to visit my girlfriend Pamela "Pammy" Ross, so that is why you have not heard from me lately. Thanks to substitute editor Reza Gostar for maintaining the website's excellence, including his coverage of the tragic crash on Kanan.

I was alerted last night to a letter that appeared this week in the Malibu Surfside News from a woman named Dianne Bates regarding 13-year-old Emily Shane, her family and others' response to her death as well as the local media coverage of it. This is what the letter states: 

I honored the so-called Pay It Forward Day by remembering all those Malibu residents who died in accidents whose families did not feel it necessary to: 1) have streets named after them; 2) have annual tributes in their honor; 3) have the Malibu City Council memorialize them with honors and special "days"; and 4) have their photos published on a regular basis by local media.

I did not know Emily Shane but if what her friends and family have said about her (very frequently) is true, she was a nice girl who met a sad and untimely end. And her memory is and should be kept alive in the hearts of those who knew her personally. But the constant and ongoing "Emily Shane-ing" of Malibu is turning her name into one just as annoying as the omnipresent Kardashian name.     

All lives are important and the loss of the other lives of Malibu residents in tragic accidents caused as much grief and sadness as the loss of Miss Shane. For her family, friends, media and the city council to constantly single out her life and death as somehow more important than the loss others have suffered is starting to feel uncomfortable to the rest of us. One might consider whether the spirit of Emily herself might even think that it is time now to stop the memorializing.

Not surprisingly, several people are very upset about this letter. There will no doubt be responses to it in next week's issue of the newspaper.

Several people have said the newspaper should not have printed the letter. I disagree with this view. A newspaper should not determine whether it would print a letter based on whether it is in good taste. We are free to say and write what we want in this country, no matter how vile our opinion might be. And a newspaper, which can only exist with these freedoms, should not be excluding others from expressing their views.

Would Malibu Patch have published this letter or something similar to it? No. But that is because the format of this website makes it so that any "letter to the editor" appears in the same slots as the articles do. We would not want to give such a large platform to a letter like this. The news media should protect the rights of people to say and write what they want, but we are under no obligation to give everybody a large platform to do it.

Malibu Patch has a policy of allowing people to write what they want. My finger is rarely on the delete button when it comes to the comments section, and I have been asked numerous times to get rid of some comments. But how much of a community forum would this website be if I determined what comments can stay and which ones must go?

As for the letter itself, there are several things to note. First off, she writes that the situation is "starting to feel uncomfortable to the rest of us." Who is "us?" Is she writing on behalf of the other 13,000+ people in Malibu? I don't know Dianne Bates, nor do I know anybody who knows her. The little I know about her is that she has a website and claims to be a journalist. So it is quite arrogant for her to proclaim she writes on behalf of anybody but herself.

Her argument that Emily's death and the aftermath get too much attention is flawed because it leaves out some important details. Emily's death gets community and media attention for two reasons—it happened in Malibu (all traffic deaths get attention in Malibu) and she lived in Malibu (when somebody in Malibu dies elsewhere, it gets attention in Malibu). Also, most traffic deaths in Malibu do not lead to criminal trials. So of course her death would get more attention and coverage than others because there is more to say.

This does not mean every traffic death in Malibu is not tragic. Emily's father Michel has written about how he mourns the deaths of all the people who die on Malibu's roads several times on Malibu Patch and in other media. The goal of A Safer PCH, the City Council and many others concerned about traffic safety in Malibu is to make this city safer for everybody. It is true that Emily's death caused some new people to focus on this issue. But for others, it has been their concern for a long time.

It is not true that Emily's family and the City Council have singled out Emily's death "as somehow more important than the loss others have suffered."

Lastly, the tone of the letter is inappropriate. Comparing the death of a 13-year-old girl to the Kardashians should offend everybody, even those who might agree with Dianne Bates. You are free to have whatever opinion you want, but it is always a good thing to try to show some class.