I don't like it that responses to Slate articles by people directly mentioned in articles go in the Fray. It seems to me that such responses are of a different order than most Fray posts. In addition, it can be very hard to tell if the person writing the response actually is who he/she says.

If people are newsworthy enough to be the subject of a Fray article, surely they are newsworthy enough to merit front page space? If they feel they have been misrepresented, I think their responses should have the same kind of visibility as the original article.

I know it's a small thing; I just thought I'd express a preference.

Thanks for your interesting post.

Slate has always felt that the Fray is the right place for everyone's reponses, a democratic forum where everyone can pile in - including, as in this case, the writer of the original piece. But yours is an interesting point of view. I think some Fray posters would argue that the Fray is just as good and important a place as the rest of the magazine.

We do try to feature major response posts - in this case in two different places in the magazine. And it may interest you to know that if we feature them like this then we have always checked that they really are who they say they are... not to mention that Adam and I both worked overtime to get them in there!

I'd be interested to know what other readers think on this issue.

Moira Redmond

Fray Team

August:

Essentially, you are asking for an article's author and their subject's response to that article be highlighted further? And a special column as written by Moira or Adam.If this is what you are referring too, I believe The Fray used to do this in past years.

It seems to me that the Fraywatch article does exactly that. The best of both worlds.

Moira -- thank you for your concern. I hadn't expected that my post would be so interesting.

I agree, Schad and run, that the Fraywatch article is a reasonable compromise. The method depends, of course, on the vigilance of the Fray editors. My recollection is that such highlighting has been at best uneven.

I'm not prepared to make that strong an argument. It was just a thought I'd had on several occasions and thought I'd express a preference.

if the article is noteworthy enough to deserve page space then the rebuttal or additional comments by people mentioned in the article do deserve their own space.

It's not as if Slate runs short of page space.

The reason that this has never been done is that Slate is not operated by top flight professionals. Most of their positions from management to writers and editors are the equivalent of sinecures and jobs won on the basis of knowing someone. As long as the e-zine doesn't lose them income, the parent company doesn't care what these people do with the e-zine itself.

The thing is, though, that if there was some mechanism for article posting contrary opinions from the people slammed, or agreement from those people praised, then a snoozing Slate editor would actually have to wake up and do some 'work' vetting the reply and attaching it to the original article and re-running it. Shudder!

What should be done, and what should have been done ages is nothing that the Slate editors would actually want to do . . . and this is why it's never been done.

For example, Yoffe can't be bothered to deal with any consequences in her own Fray so she gets to write an article in another department and then not deal with that Fray either.

that you are that naive as to the psychology of humanity.

The Fray boards are the place for free range nutters; which is why I post here and there and everywhere. I am a crank and a crackpot and I wouldn't want something important of mine [say the universe inverted and I were interviewed by a Slate Writer] placed among the run-of-the-mill Fray-idiot responses. Not if it were really important to me.

It's the rare individual that would care to place something personally important in that format as a response to a Slate article when it applies to a reputation or even a career.

I believe there is a fray board under "About Us" (do they still name it that?) simply named "Corrections".... which I presume contain posts with corrections to the articles. I read the articles on page one but I've never popped open the Corrections fray board.

My question isn't about what happens when somebody has an issue with something written in the Fray. My question is about what happens when somebody is the subject of a front page article and wants to respond to that article (Days, if you are reading, that's not the same as a correction).

In a print magazine, usually such responses go in the "Letters" section -- which is not ideal but at least they are still pretty visible. Lots of people who read Slate don't read the Fray, so in this case if somebody writes an article about me, my response is likely to be missed unless it is highlighted by the Fray editors.

So the question is: given that Slate doesn't have the space constraints of print media, and given that by publishing an article about a person, Slate has deemed them newsworthy, why shouldn't they get a roughly space to express their views if they feel their ideas have been misrepresented?

something more like Ursula Le Guin was able to do here (even though she was taking another media outlet to task) versus what Michael Chabon got here.

I (now) get what you're saying and, of course Schad is right, and you are also right to be concerned that the highlights depend on not only the vigilance of the editors but also their willingness to accept direction from the floor.

I was jes' sayin' ... you know, that it has the same feel to it as the Corrections board. First you make the mistake in the article that everyone reads, but then you make a correction on the correction fray board that no one reads. It's that non-equal space that doesn't feel right; just like when newspapers print their corrections to headline articles in the back of section 13, four weeks later. (To Slate's credit, their authors do a damn good job of tagging corrections to the bottom of their articles.)

I'm not sure Gatewood is being fair, calling the editors too lazy for failing to post the responses to the article... if they posted the responses in the fray, they did the work; the question isn't laziness, the question is discernment. Schad makes a good point that noting the response in the Fraywatch article would give equal billing, but I don't like the disconnect; especially for outside sources unfamiliar with the fray. I agree with your top post observation that those type responses belong attached to the bottom of the article ... in the white space, before the gray space replies that sometimes get attached from the fray.

I’m finding this very interesting. (I will also post in the parallel discussion in Best of Fray)

In the interests of helping the argument, you might like a few facts about how it works.

If someone mentioned in an article approaches Slate, they will be advised to post in the Fray. Some people just come and post anyway, because they know the system.

When we see such a response we always a) check that the poster is who he or she claims to be b) give the post a check and c) post the response at the foot of the article. If this does not happen (and I do not know of any such occasions) it would be because we did not know it was there. But normally we do know! I personally formulated this policy many years ago, and I believe it has been current ever since. I’m a bit surprised by the people claiming here that we are too lazy to do this. I’d love to hear their examples…

If the issue warrants it, we would also mention it in Fraywatch, as has happened recently with the drugs story, and with Michael Chabon. (It used to be that they would be featured in the Best of the Fray column.)

It also does happen that someone mentioned in an article wants to make a response which is not a complaint: to add to the story, or even compliment the author. Such a response would get the same treatment.

As far as I know, no-one has ever complained to Slate about the treatment of his or her response. I have often emailed back and forth with those concerned – as well as checking identity, I would usually send them links to the relevant pages. Whatever their issues with the article, they almost always say some version of ‘thanks for dealing with this in a straightforward way.’

Moira Redmond

...attach a stigma to postings in the fray versus the holy writ of Slate articles. I can see where someone new to the Slate forum would perceive that their letter/e-mail was duly honored via a fray post; but it just doesn't strike the same chord in my ear, I'm tainted by these many years of being a frayster; you know, to me "frayster" belongs in the dictionary. So, while your system sure makes sense, and there's nothing wrong with it, it still somehow doesn't feel right to me; because I live with the great divide between the fray and the articles.

(august carried a star in the old fray, he's a very genuine poster, and quite worthy of the attention you are giving his question)

I'm sure by now you've seen the news, it appears to be devastating. Have you heard from those you know there? And I'm going by memory but didn't seasquirt mention taking a trip to Bejing in the near future?