On Friday, I deleted a paragraph from a previous posting that made fun of the appearance Chris Zelkovich. It had to do with a photo in the Star of Chris wearing 3D glasses, and it was a cheap shot - unfair and juvenile. Zelkovich is a competitor, in a sense, but I don’t even know the guy. I met him once, and the conversation was short and perfunctory. I’ve made my share of mistakes as a journalist. This attempt to comment humorously about Zelkovich was one of them.
Now, to James Mirtle, a blogger and Globe and Mail journalist: Too harsh in my criticism. The piece in question was poorly reported, I felt. It’s still up, in the previous column, if you wish to see it.
On Friday afternoon, we took down the two columns that I had written because the comments section was getting hammered with some pretty vicious stuff. The only way to get rid of them was to remove the entire postings. I’m okay with taking a hit. God knows I’ve dished out plenty. But this abuse, by people who post comments without using their real names, got out of hand.