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OPINION: A few problems with a cowardly 'Harlicka'Sep 05, 2011 (Florence Morning News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Letters to the editor are one of the great joys of this job. You strike up relations with some of the regulars, engage in interesting, sometimes weird, debate, and do your best to ride herd over the whole passionate process. But it has it, um, moments, as well. Take the Skip Harlicka case for instance. Close readers of our editorial page will know that Mr. Harlicka graced our pages last Sunday with a stirring defense of K.G. "Rusty" Smith's controversial bid to become Florence's next county administrator. Long-time South Carolina fans will know that Harlicka once graced the basketball court (and baseball field) in Gamecockland. He was a legendary hardcourt gunner who led Frank McGuire's teams of the late 1960s to a point from which they could view the mountaintop. South Carolina's rise to the top of the collegiate basketball world wasn't actually completed until the early 1970s, when John Roche, Tom Owens, et al arrived, but Harlicka helped position the program for those glory years. And now, years later, he's settled down in the Florence area and taken an acute interest in local politics. Well, maybe not. Although the jury is still slightly out, it appears that in this case we wuz had. Whoever wrote the letter signed Harlicka's name to it, well, sort of signed. It's just a small chicken scratch above the typed letters. That Harlicka actually wrote it ... probably not. Readers might wonder how something like this can happen, or might wonder why it doesn't happen more often. Because it is a common problem -- there are cowards everywhere who want to take shots and people and policies without fessing up to having actually done it -- newspapers have developed policies to verify authorship. We don't have lots of time for this here, so our policy is fairly simple. We check phone records to see if the listed number matches the name, then call the sender to see how they answer the phone. Some of our readers write us a lot. We call them every time. A really saavy, letter-writing coward could foil this system, so long as he or she were willing to answer their phone and then tell us they were the person we were asking for, but not many people are that interested in having a letter published anonymously. In this case, the folks involved in our verification process -- myself and a clerk who handles our letters -- simply miscommunicated. I saw that "Harlicka's" letter did not include a phone number and a quick search of the records did not show any Harlickas in the area. It was also a little suspicious to get a letter from a former South Carolina great. I'm a former sports writer, and while not old enough to have covered Harlicka, I was familiar with the name. He was that good. Thinking all of this smelled just a little bit, I wrote on "Harlicka's" letter that it was okay to use, that is, the content was okay, but that it might be difficult to verify. That was interpreted as, go ahead and process the letter. My bad. Should have been clearer. A few days later the letter appeared in the correct and normal place on our network, and I assumed that Harlicka had been verified. Based on this assumption, I even thought about letting our sports department know so they can get up with Harlicka and write a story on him, noting how he managed to wind up in Florence. You know what they say about assume, and that certainly was the case here. County Treasurer Dean Fowler, who did not agree with "Harlicka's" sentiments, called to question the veracity of the letter. After searching state records, Fowler couldn't find a Skip Harlicka anywhere, much less in Florence. Further searching suggests that Harlicka, now a retired businessman, may have residences in Raleigh, N.C., and in the Charleston area. Efforts to reach him and quiz about whether or not fellow Gamecock Rusty Smith would make a good county administrator have, so far, been unsuccessful. I am personally chagrined by this incident, which has only happened to me twice (as far as I know) in 30-some years. I messed up and I let our readers down. Letter writers can't be anonymous. Honest debate demands true identity. Our company recently changed the way manage online commentary with exactly this goal in mind. So I disappointed that we'd failed in that regard. Nonetheless, I will give Mr. "Harlicka" some credit. In theory, it would be easier to slip a fake signature past us if you used a name like "Bob Smith" or "Jim Jackson." But this guy (or gal) chose Skip Harlicka, which is not a common name, nor, in these parts, a forgettable one. He or she is likely a smart (aleck), and probably figured that if they didn't sneak one through, they'd at least get a laugh. I'm all for that. But Mr. Harlicka, whoever you are, just know that I'm on the lookout now. This won't happen again. We won't publish another unverified letter. Not even if it's from Tree Rollins. Tucker Mitchell is Regional Editor of the Morning News. Skip Harlicka, or anyone else, can contact him at 843-317-7250, or by email at [email protected]. ___ (c)2011 the Florence Morning News (Florence, S.C.) Visit the Florence Morning News (Florence, S.C.) at www2.scnow.com/community/morningnews Distributed by MCT Information Services |