There’s been a bit of a pissing match going on between WNRN and C-Ville Weekly in the past few weeks, and it looks like it may not be ending any time soon. It all started a few weeks ago when media critic Kathryn Goodson wrote a piece criticizing public radio (you might remember her story criticizing cvillenews.com last June), which resulted in some defensive letters in the next couple of issues of the C-Ville Weekly. Last week’s issue featured an angry letter from WNRN’s Mike Friend, who took a shot at WTJU (“[a] miserable, play-less radio playtoy”), Goodson (“[an] ignorant twerp”) and issued a thinly-veiled legal threat against C-Ville Weekly. However, the letter was written to the publisher of C-Ville Weekly, not the editor, so it appears that Friend didn’t write the piece to be read by the public. This week’s issue brought the largest volley of letters yet, with everybody criticizing somebody for something, but nobody really agreeing on anything. So what do y’all think? Is Goodson right: is public radio in the area not up to snuff? Should Friend’s letter have been published? Will either side know when to back down, or will this become an ongoing soap opera?
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
four six and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Can somebody explain what Mike Friend’s motivation was for taking a mean shot at WTJU like that? It seems silly to attack them like that. It’s kind of like an elephant complaining that the hippo’s trunk is too short.
WTJU plays stuff that you won’t hear on commercial radio anywhere and serves some great niche markets. It gives students a chance to try radio out. For years it has been chugging away doing these things in it’s endearing WTJU way. A little dead air here and there. But WTJU knows what they are and don’t pretend to be anything else.
Sounds like Mike Friend is on a bit of an ego trip?
I’m thinking Mike Friend has been over-sensitive to Ms. Goodson’s critique…which I agree with completely. WNRN is in need of a musical makeover. Media critics’ remarks should be taken constructively, or not at all, but to react to them by counterattacking is just plain foolishness. And to attack a fellow public radio station (and a good one at that!) like WTJU is idiotic. So when Mike (not such a good) Friend writes to the publisher of C-ville with rancor, I applaud the editor and the publisher for making the letter public. Friend has been outed, we know him for who he is. Let the chips fall where they may, and let Goodson’s writing speak for itself…she has the right, ’cause C-ville pays her (and not the rest of us) to do her job. In the absence of malice, I see C-ville providing a great service to the public with their art and media and restaurant critiques. Friend should chill out before his leadership style gets in the way of the non-profit business he works for (at the pleasure of his board, I’m sure).
If memory serves (since C-Ville’s stuff isn’t archived on their site, I don’t actually have a copy of the column to read), I agreed with Kathryn Goodson in concept. I believe that I found the specifics of her piece to be idealistic to the point of naivete, in the manner of somebody that simply wasn’t familiar with the workings of public radio. I’m similarly bothered by WNRN as a wolf in sheep’s clothing (if you’ll pardon the classification of commercial-style radio as a wolf), particularly their claim that they are without advertising. Obviously they have advertising — theirs is simply read live, and uses only passive terminology. But something about how she wrote the piece set me up to feel as if I was in opposition to Ms. Goodson, as opposed to agreeing with her…even though I believe we basically agree on this topic. I assume that my defensive posture was because I feel strongly about public radio, and feel inclined to fend off apparent attacks.
Disclosure: I used to work for WWWV/WCHV in the early-to-mid-90s, I’ve volunteered for WVTF, and I used to DJ regularly for WTJU in the mid-90s.
This whole "controversy" strikes me as public display of a private disagreement. Whatever the issue is, it ain’t very interesting, and it isn’t going to alter Cville, WNRN, or WTJU one bit. I like all three, by the way, but I am not interested in personal differences among the staffs. We all have our own futile family and office politics to keep us bored.
PD
Don’t be so critical of Mike Friend as a person. You probably don’t actually know him. I do, and have worked with him at WNRN several times. He’s gotten a lot of crap from strangers after that letter being printed, but he’s actually a nice guy who works like a dog to keep WNRN on the air and resonably popular. We do not "know him for who he is" because of that letter. He told C-Ville that the letter wasn’t to be printed, and it did anyway. He did make mistakes in insulting WTJU and others, but it was a private letter, and I must admit I have to agree with him on TJU.
As someone volunteering at WNRN I disagreed with almost all of what Kathryn Goodson wrote in her original article. But the biggest problem was that her article was not in any way made to look like an opinion piece or editorial, but in fact looked like any other fact-based news story in that week’s issue of the paper. I thought Anne Williams’ letter responding to how 91.9 lives in the reality of public radio was appropriate and I thought that CVILLE needed to do more to differentiate between ‘news’ and ‘opinion’ when they followed up after Anne’s letter but they chose not to do that. As for the rest of the mess after that? Totally pointless bickering that should have taken place in private if at all. The worst part of it is that WNRN looks bad when in fact it is made up of dozens of incredibly hard working volunteers providing this area with something that didn’t exist 6 years ago.
As I recall, Friend used to work (volunteer?) at WTJU, and his disenchantment with that station led at least in part to his starting WNRN. I don’t remember why exactly, but I think he has had long-standing gripes with TJU going back a long ways. It’s too bad – I like WNRN a lot (yeah, I know, there’s room for improvement, but I admire anyone for going out and accomplishing something they believe in, and the station is still better than most of our local choices), but Friend’s bellyaching just reflects poorly on him and on WNRN.
I think we’re pretty damned lucky to have both WTJU and WNRN. I listen to both. In this Clear Channel hell, we need all the independent voices we can find.
The C-ville tries to piss people off. So what else is new?
People continue to write that Mr. Friend did not authorize the use of that letter, but that is not how it was reported in the C-Ville. When offered the opportunity to edit/censure his letter, Friend declined. Perhaps he has since told staff and anyone who will listen that he forbade the letter to be printed, but that is not what was reported in the C-Ville. Naturally this is a matter of He Said/She Said, but Friend has a history of reacting before allowing common sense to prevail.
As to his diatribes against WTJU, the man seems to be paranoid about a station of volunteers who hold no grudge against the man. There are some phenomenal programs on that station, that in my opinion far outshine anything on WNRN. Between the Prism broadcasts, Rhythm and Romance, Reggae Vibrations, Nothin’ But the Blues, Professor Bebop, Sunset Road, and the classical and children’s programming to name but a few, you hear amazing programming on WTJU. Mr. Friend simply seems to have an axe to grind against WTJU and all that goes with it. Perhaps he should run his station instead of his mouth.
Five tenets wrote:
People continue to write that Mr. Friend did not authorize the use of that letter, but that is not how it was reported in the C-Ville. When offered the opportunity to edit/censure his letter, Friend declined.
I wish that I had a copy of the current week’s C-Ville Weekly here at home, but I’m afraid that I don’t. I, too, had argued your point earlier in the week, but somebody pointed out to me that, according to C-Ville Weekly, he was merely offered the opportunity to edit his letter. There was no indication that he had any opportunity to ask that it simply not be run.
I hastily wrote, "When offered the opportunity to edit/censure his letter, Friend declined.". I of course meant "censor". Sorry for the misuse of censure.
I was an announcer at WTJU during Mike Friends last few weeks there. It appeared he was an active volunteer there, but was furious that WTJU was making no attempts to gain listeners by acting more like a commercial station. I think Friend led a camp advocating that TJU enforce song rotations and abandon its more eclectic shows. I remember he was abrasive, and vehement in this advocacy. (I only met him once in the studio: he walked in during my show, said "Your show could be much better," and walked away into the production studio.)
When Friend left WTJU to work on STU-COMM, which then, I guess, became WNRN, both Friends and WTJUs faithfuls were mutually hostile. I remember WTJU staff claiming that "WNRN people" had infilitrated WTJU; supposedly WNRN spies took information about WTJUs fund-raising marathons back to Friend and his cohort. Certainly, during NRNs first year, its djs made on-air criticisms of TJU during the TJU rock marathon, sometimes mentioning WTJU by name. On the other hand, as a rock marathon announcer that year, I was instructed to claim WTJUs superiority over "other local non-profit stations" ("if you want to").
I havent listened to the radio in a long time. I liked WTJU, and WNRN too. I liked WTJU better. I wouldnt want either station to survive at the expense of the other. I think Friends and NRNers claims that stations like WTJU are listenless and stupid in a commercial market are wrong. WTJU has many devout listeners, I bet. Freeform, eclectic stations like WTJU (WFMU, New York City; KUT, Austin; KPFA, Berkeley, just for instance) all succeed in commercial markets. KUT Austin even often leads morning drive-time arbitron ratings.
In the current issue of Cville Weekly, in an editorial response to one of the Letters to the Editor (the one from Ronda Chollock), the editor(s) say that Friend "was made aware" of their plans to publish his letter and was given the opportunity to edit it.
Now, that could mean that Cville said "hey–we’re going to publish this letter whether you like it or not, even if you did not send it to us as a letter to the editor. Want to edit it before we do this?"
In that context, the opportunity to edit the letter may have just been galling, if Friend’s initial position was that they don’t have the right to publish the letter in the first place. Agreeing to edit it could be construed as tacitly giving them permission to run it; maybe he didn’t want to edit it for that reason.
I’m curious about how clear it was in the letter that it was not intended for publication. Surely we should be able to write letters to media outlets–angry letters, sometimes–and NOT see those letters appear in print if that was never our intention. There’s a difference between a Letter to the Editor and a letter to the editor, I guess is what I’m saying, and I’m wondering how clear Friend made it to Cville which camp his letter fell in.
Keep in mind that even if you send a letter to a friend, that letter remains your intellectual property; it does not become the property of the recipient. The recipient can’t then publish the letter without your permission.
"I applaud the editor and the publisher for making the letter public. Friend has been outed, we know him for who he is."
Let’s think about this statement a little bit. Readers who have never met Mike Friend and wouldn’t know him if they tripped over him now "know him for who he is" on the basis of one angry letter he wrote to the staff of the Cville Weekly? How many of us have said or written angry things that are out of character? Is this really a viable standard–letting one statement sum up who a person is?
I’m not saying that Mike Friend is or isn’t, on the whole, a jerk–I didn’t know his name until this week, I don’t know the guy. But I think OneStone is working more from some anti-Friend position than from a logical position. It’s ridiculous to say that we can now judge the kind of person Friend is on the basis of this letter that Cville printed.
The Hook doesn’t necessarily take the high road… in fact, I think they have stooped lower than the C-ville on many occasions. But that is the nature of an alternative weekly. Sometimes their criticisms and opinions rankle their readers or take aim at the "bigger dogs" like the Daily Progress or the ones that are full of themselves and need to be taken down a notch, like The Observer. Seems to also be the case for alternative radio. They are to Charlottesville what the National Enquirer is to the U.S.; they are tabloids full of rumor, potshots, yet many times truthful stories that others are afraid to publish. We complain that they are "no good" but we will always pick up a copy or tune them in to see what they say next.
If you look at the fine italics just above Mr Friend’s letter in discussion it says, ‘to the Publisher’ not ‘to the Editor’. Included in the text are several references to a singular ‘you’, obviously directed at the publisher and a meeting the two of them had together. As to whether Mike Friend later agreed to allow his letter to be published or CVILLE just decided they were going to do it and offered him a chance to make some edits I don’t know but it is obvious that the original thoughts were private between 2 men.
I consulted an intellectual property rights attorney this afternoon, asking who owns the rights to the letter, Mike Friend (who wrote it), or the C-Ville Weekly publisher (who received it). He said any first year law student would know that the recipient of the letter owns the rights to it (unless so stated in the letter). Once a letter is received by someone, he has the right to do anything, including publish it, if he feels so inclined. The argument that the publisher of the C-Ville did not have the right to publish that letter is therefore without merit.
I refer you to Salinger vs. Random House, Inc., circa 1987. The 2nd Circuit Court ruled that Random House could not release a book by (unauthorized) biographer Ian Hamilton, because Hamilton did not have Salinger’s permission to reproduce those letters. Hamilton could read those letters all that he wanted, but he could not publish them. Hamilton was forced to re-write the book in a manner that did not makes use of Salinger’s copyrighted materials.
By your logic, if I wrote a 250-page book and mailed it to you, I would inherently relinquish my copyright to that book by the mere act of mailing it to you. This, obviously, is not true.
For more information, read the New York Times’ January 30, 1987 article on the topic, "Salinger Biography is Blocked."
Waldo,
I am not going to get into an argument over this issue with you. As I am not an attorney, I went to one who specializes in intellectual property rights. I appreciate that you researched this point for yourself, but I am going to take the word of this attorney, who I know has argued this particular topic in different courts (and won on each level).
If you are so certain of your argument, all I can do is suggest you confirm what you believe with an attorney you trust.
I am not going to get into an argument over this issue with you.
I should certainly hope not. I’m angling for something closer to intelligent discussion. :)
I am going to take the word of this attorney, who I know has argued this particular topic in different courts (and won on each level).
You should definitely send his name to Random House. I hear there’s a book they’d like to publish. ;)
Something that should be noted is that in publishing the letter, C-Ville violated all sorts of requirements of journalistic integrity and ethics. Letters to the publisher are not intended for public consumption and regardless of what you think of the content of the letter, C-Ville was completely wrong in printing it.
Also, I think C-ville reviews are excesively useless. They seem, from what I’ve read in the last several weeks, to be untimely (theater reviews after a play has closed), uninformed and not the most intelligently written prose one might find in a paper. (In fairness I should say that the Hook -with the notable exception of a piece or two about Live Arts this summer- is just as bad.)
Never make the mistake of believing that simply because one gets paid to do something that one is at all qualified to do that thing. Ms. Goodson may have a job as a critic but it doesn’t confer upon her the ability to be a good nor an effective one.
I would have agreed with you a few weeks ago. At this point, I’m getting out of the habit of finding the new paper the day it comes out. Both restaurantarama and dish have been horrible of late (and duplicative) and the music "reviews" are more stories of an outing…and just don’t care.
I used to love C-ville years ago but i fear the split has caused both papers to plummit in quality.
It also isn’t entirely a legal standard here, but also one of journalistic ethics and integrity. Letters to the editor are for publication. Open letters are for publication. Letters to the publisher are not. So, regardless of the specific legal right, what c-ville did was wrong in their profession.
Also…I’d tend to go with the precedent on this one. I’m not a lawyer, but the argument about not relinquishing the rights to something sent simply by sending it makes common sense.
I’d be interested to hear what your lawyer friend bases his/her position on–what are the legal precedents for the position that an author surrenders copyright simply by virtue of putting a letter in the mail. This position doesn’t jibe with what is common knowledge (and easily confirmed by simple research) regarding copyright.
Basically, an author owns the copyright to whatever creative works he/she produces–and "creative works" has been interpreted to include personal letters, emails, and posts to online boards. You don’t surrender copyright just by sticking a stamp on something and mailing it off.
Go to Yahoo, type in "copyright of email," for example, and check out the various sites that come up.
Fivetenets, I understand that you have confidence in what your lawyer friend told you, but I think the rest of us on the board aren’t going to be persuaded by you unless you tell us what evidence your lawyer friend is standing on. Just saying that you know a lawyer who said so isn’t really convincing.
The relevant part from the case Waldo cites:
"The author of letters is entitled to a copyright in the letters, as with any other work of literary authorship. See Meeropol v. Nizer, 560 F.2d 1061, 1069 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1013, 98 S. Ct. 727, 54 L. Ed. 2d 756, 196 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 592 (1977); Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342, 346 (C.C.D. Mass. 1841) (No. 4,901); 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 5.04 (1986); W. Patry, Latman’s The Copyright Law 130 (6th ed. 1986). Prior to 1978, unpublished letters, like other unpublished works, were protected by common law copyright, but the 1976 Copyright Act preempted the common law of copyright, 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), and brought unpublished works under the protection of federal copyright law, which includes the right of first publication among the rights accorded to the copyright owner, id. § 106(3). The copyright owner owns the literary property rights, including the right to complain of infringing copying, while the recipient of the letter retains [95] ownership of "the tangible physical property of the letter itself."
I think we’re pretty damned lucky to have both WTJU and WNRN. I listen to both. In this Clear Channel hell, we need all the independent voices we can find.
I’m so tired of this argument. Yay, WNRN is Indie. Go them. Except they play the same god-awful shite you find on clear channel, all of the time. And rather than just the twenty or so pop-y listenable songs, they have to add in hours of clones of these bands screaming off key for no apparent reason. I mean, honestly, I love the special shows on NRN, but I can’t stand to listen to the modern rock bullshit that goes on all day and most of the evening. And driving home at 5:00 to hear all that irritating NOISE is unbearable. (Author’s Note: I love me some industrial music, so I mean the hundreds of wannabe bands that are getting too much play these days, and you know who i mean.)
And while I’m ranting, why can’t NRN get more DJs that have some sort of presence, or charisma, instead of sounding like rejects from public radio? Mike sounds like he knows what he’s saying, a lot of the others seem to be stumbling through cue cards. (Author’s Note: I also used to DJ on a Southern Gospel station, faking my way through a thick accent.) If you’re going to have people babbling away for five minutes at a time, INSTEAD of commercials, they need to at least keep people’s attention. (Note to everyone: dropping underwriting notes every hour is just as bad as a commercial – it’s still advertising.)
Sorry, y’all. I’m going back to listening to Clear Channel until Subculture Shock, Download, or the Boom Box is on.
Cecil,
"Just saying that you know a lawyer who said so isn’t really convincing."
I am not trying to convince anyone of my argument, because it is not an argument. I was simply conveying a point told to me by an attorney who specializes in intellectual property rights. I then suggested that Waldo may wish do the same before stating a point so unequivocally.
Well, the part where you said "this is what the attorney said" is, as you write, simply conveying a point told to you by an attorney.
However, the part in your original post where you wrote that "The argument that the publisher of the C-Ville did not have the right to publish that letter is therefore without merit" is an argumentative claim. Therefore, you shouldn’t be real surprised that people are putting pressure on that claim and your basis for making it.
It’s not a big attack thing–I really am curious to hear what your lawyer bases his position on. I don’t know any IP lawyers myself. Do you think you could ask him/her again for the foundations for this position? Maybe that could resolve this question so that everyone learns something new.
I’m so tired of this argument. Yay, WNRN is Indie. Go them. Except they play the same god-awful shite you find on clear channel, all of the time.
Sorry, I ain’t buyin’. Yeah, they don’t play what you want. And they often don’t play what I want either. And too often they play music that’s not all that challenging or different. but to compare them with the canned program crap that comes out of 107.5 is ludicrious. Clear Channel stations don’t even know music – all they know is whatever crap their execs and their focus groups back at HQ tell them to know.
My point isn’t that NRN plays the best music possible. My point is that I’d rather listen to a local, independent voice who plays some good stuff once in a while to a f*cking corporate monster who cares nothing about my musical taste, or my community, and who only moved to town to make some advertising dollars.
"Do you think you could ask him/her again for the foundations for this position? Maybe that could resolve this question so that everyone learns something new."
I can’t afford to ask him for additional details, as it was during a meeting I was paying for (on a different matter). Sorry.
For me, it isn’t so much a matter for what music any radio stations play–it’s the absence of those blaring, moronic, IDIOTIC commercials that you here on non-NRN non-NPR stations.
Yes yes yes I know that NRN and NPR pitch their underwriters and I KNOW that’s pretty close to being a "commercial."
But for me, the crucial difference lies between having the dj or announcer read the marketing copy off the clipboard or whatever–which is bearable–and listening to some slickly produced insultingly stupid f*cking moronic professional advertisement. The latter just makes my hair stand on end.
Yeah, I’d agree with that completely. A DJ reading a pitch for an underwriter is almost always better than a slickly produced radio spot.
And in general, I’d rather hear those "unprofessional", un-"charismatic" DJ’s who sometimes stumble over words (or in WTJU’s case, leave us with 30 seconds of dead air until they figure out the music has stopped playing) than having listen to Joe Bob and Whats His Name or whoever the hell those morons are.
Just for clarification, alternative radio like WNRN have not had any of this controversial stuff on the air, their opinions are just in the paper.
At any rate, this should be interesting to see what happens if this does go to court. It may, as I spoke to Mike recently and he said that the station and him personally were talking to lawyers.
Yeah, I’d agree with that completely. A DJ reading a pitch for an underwriter is almost always better than a slickly produced radio spot.
Well, if you feel that way, maybe you should listen to Clear Channel. Why, just yesterday I heard Carson Daly doing an ad for Starburst during his Total Request Live (or whatever) show. That should make you feel right at home, and make the transition easier. ;)
Sorry, I ain’t buyin’. Yeah, they don’t play what you want. And they often don’t play what I want either. And too often they play music that’s not all that challenging or different. but to compare them with the canned program crap that comes out of 107.5 is ludicrious. Clear Channel stations don’t even know music – all they know is whatever crap their execs and their focus groups back at HQ tell them to know.
I never asked you to buy it. I suggest you check their playlists – you’ll see the same Eminem, Avril something-french-er-other, Hives/Vines/wannabe-britpop-of-the-week, and so on during their modern rock shows – particularly at nite, where they’re trying to pull the same audience as Clear Channel. Put down the Indie flag, get over yourself, and go actually listen – you’ll see the same thing.
Mike Friend’s biggest threat is XM Radio, not Cville Weekly. I have it in my car and two homes; it’s great and you too will have it in your car in a few years.
PD
What, and give up my iPod? Well, probably. Assuming it’s cheap. Or industry-standard. Mmm.. shiny toys!
Like several other posters here, I think Fivetenets has consulted a poor lawyer or misunderstood what he was told. Even under common law since the early 1700s, an author retained certain copyrights until publication, even over the letters he wrote. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 seems to have written the common law of copyright into statute /and/ offered statutory copyright protection to some often unpublished works like letters and sermons. I think its very certain that the law here says that a letters recipient does /not/ have a clear or likely right to publish it without the authors permission. But, Im not a lawyer.
So, I bet the legal question here would be whether the C-ville Weekly can claim some right, other than copyright, to publish Friends letter. If Friend granted them permission to publish it, then they probably didnt violate Friends rights. If he didnt, then maybe the letters publication was some kind of fair use. It could have been.
you don’t happen to work for Clear Channel? NRN’s music varies quite a bit from the 40 song rotation on commercial radio. you’re not going to hear actual metal on 101.9.
i agree 100% i got XM last month, and haven’t listened to the local crap since (well, i listen to NPR for about 30 seconds when i pull into the parking garage and lose the XM signal). granted, XM costs $10 a month, but it’s so worth it to not have to listen to the insipid DJs on 91.9 spinning the same "eclectic" crap over and over. or the 3 lynrd skynrd songs they repeat ad naseum on 97.5. it’s also nice to pay a flat fee for quality radio, instead of listening to mike friend and his cronies badgering us twice a year for donations. sheesh.
When it comes to C-Ville Weekly and The Hook, their restaurant, media, book and art "articles" are expected to be critiques…they always have been and always will be. These weeklies aren’t the Daily Regress, ya know, and it would be totally naive to believe that they report "news." Tabloids are more like magazines in that regard, and if anyone is fooled into believing that a "critique" is "news" (and not "editorial") well, caveat lector, I say.
Come on fellow posters, haven’t you ever watched "60 Minutes" where they’ve taken on some company that produces dangerous products and the manufacturer responds to a complaining consumer in a letter saying they will take corrective action and then take none. The recipient and "owner" of the letter (the consumer) gives the letter to "60 Minutes" and they televise it (aka publish it) on the air. If it’s germaine to the story, it’s fair game.
Also, fair use laws are *not* specific, but usually rely on judicial decisions. The rule of thumb varies, but some legal eagles say 50 words quoted from *any* source, regardless of who holds the copyrights is ok, others say 80 words, some even 300 words, as long as you state the source. So any of us can quote herein, say, 80 words of a Grisham novel without violating copyright laws and without securing permission from the publisher who holds the copyrights. Seems that C-Ville Weekly did that very thing with Friend’s letter, and a hard case would have to be made this wasn’t fair use.
One more thing: the press is protected in the extreme by what is called "absence of malice." One would have to prove that the publication, in reporting their story,*purposefully* and with *malice* and *forethought* set out to do harm to the person on which they were reporting. Not that harm isn’t done to everyone of whom bad news is published (e.g. a negative review of some kind), but the subject of the article would have to prove beyond a doubt that the story was published with the *intent* to harm them. Without "absence of malice," there could be no negative news or editorials at all! These rulings perpetuate freedom of the press, and the first amendment rights for all of us, not just the press.
Imagine how ludicrous if writer Kathryn Goodson now sued any posters in this site for criticizing her editorial because the posters "ruined" her reputation etc etc. Yes, even we armchair writers are protected by absence of malice rulings and therefore have the "right" to criticize in this open forum the works of Mike Friend, C-Ville Weekly, or even our fellow posters.
No, just nu-metal. WNRN does get repetitive. I remember last year they played Everclear every day when I got in the car to go to lunch. I would normally leave around 1pm. Then I got so incredibly sick of it (and I hated Everclear to begin with) and started leaving around 12pm. Same thing kept happening! It really made me feel paranoid, so I turned to 92.7 and listened to music completely different than what I was used to. You know what? It was better than being stalked by Everclear.