Johns: Newspaper not the place for ‘drive-by’ debates

JF Todd’s letter addressing another letter from Rick Andrews is an unprofessional attack on Mr. Andrews. I don’t know either of these readers and I never even read Mr. Andrew’s original letter. However, Todd’s rant was just an ad hominem personal attack.

The subject matter doesn’t even matter in this case. If a reader’s comments cannot be respectful to another reader, then they have no place in your paper.

I’ve seen drive-by debates like this before in other publications that should have taken place in a fair live debate setting somewhere. Not in a newspaper. The rest of us see this and roll our eyes. With the amount of division and anger these days, allowing personal attacks like this just lowers the bar for a good editorial.