Editorial: Tone of letters could use improvement

A few words on our letters to the editor: Be nice!

Perhaps it’s a reflection of our times, but as one reader pointed out, the weekly correspondence has taken on an angry, bitter and far too personal tone of late.

Feel free to agree or disagree with a letter run in a previous issue, but henceforth all name-calling is strictly off-limits. Challenge the message, not the messenger. Corny as it may sound, we consider the letters an essential part of the public dialogue and, as one political observer said, of the “noise of Democracy.”

Let’s keep the debate on a high plane and out of the gutter.