Email anxiety, the search for a cure

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Email anxiety, the search for a cure: "Readers may be more reasonable in this than some journalists suppose them to be. One reader, taking up an invitation at the end of my column last week, wrote to say, 'Readers should not expect replies to their comments. The purpose of the feedback is to supply the columnist with appraisal, corrections and, occasionally, enlightenment ... Email feedback is of enormous benefit to the modern communicator.'

Most of the Guardian journalists who made their views known to me, seem to agree, at least in part, with that last statement. Only one, in fact, categorically rejected the idea of any discourse with the reader, telling me, 'I would not welcome my email address at the bottom of anything I write. I just don't regard my work as an invitation to dialogue.'"

also David Wilcox's Designing for a Civil Society.

via david brake