Letters


April 20, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: Our mailbox this week was jammed with reactions to my interview with Michael Hoy of Loompanics, distributor of such useful titles as How to Circumvent a Security Alarm in Ten Seconds or Less, The Heroin User's Handbook, and The Black Book of Arson. The discussion centered on whether such books increased the FBI's impulse to snoop on all of us. It ended when I sort of lost my temper and we decided as an experiment not to edit that out.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:We got a few positive responses, and they tended to sound like this one from Guillermo Cano in Seattle. He writes, "Kudos to Garfield for having the journalistic discretion to end the interview with Michael Hoy. Mr. Hoy chooses to ignore the point that the right to free speech carries with it an equal responsibility for what is being conveyed. That is why it is unthinkable that even the most ardent advocates of free speech would today yell 'bomb' during a plane flight."

BOB GARFIELD:But most of the response, on the order of about 20 to 1, was negative -- like this one from Sarah Swift of Riverside, California. She writes whether the Mike Hoy interview was about security versus liberty or free speech rights, it struck me that Bob Garfield sounded more like a blue-haired anti-smut crusader than a thoughtful member of the news media. His simplistic stance on the issue --"Everyone knows what you're doing is wrong and you disgust me" -- did not seem fitting for the complicated question of whether the risks of propagating certain types of material outweigh the ideal of freedom of expression so valued in this society."

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Pat Fitzgerald from Brooklyn writes that he "loves the show. But I can't believe how easily Michael Hoy baited you into sounding so school-marmish. Loompanics isn't exactly NAMBLA, you know. I would have thought you'd believe the First Amendment is the First Amendment whether it's Mark Twain, Michael Hoy or, God forbid, Bill O'Reilly. By the way," adds Fitzgerald, "those anarchist bomb and drug cookbooks he sells are much more likely to blow up any reader who tries to follow their convoluted instructions. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER] We welcome your comments, recollections and your recipes -- especially if they work. Send them to onthemedia@wnyc.org and please don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name.

BOB GARFIELD:Coming up, why you should be excited about the Data Quality Act -- really. And why financial shows hate to sell themselves short.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from National Public Radio.