Tips on Avoiding and Dealing With Bashers

Bleacher Creature Robert H. Spain offers some advice for writers in coping with personal attacks in response to their articles.

If you’re going to publish anything (online, magazine print, or newspaper), it’s inevitable (Team America reference anyone?) that there are going to be people who are going disagree with you, and that’s fine. But, it’s those “bashers” that really seem to get on everyone’s nerves—the people who leave comments that are intended to attack rather than debate or discuss the issue at hand.

Lately, I’ve come across some emails and comments that were intended to attack me and my articles. Ahh, yes, the bashers have struck again.

Anyways, in light of the recent situation, here are some tips to avoid these bashings as best as possible:

1. Remember that your Bleacher Report articles will show up on GoogleNews searches alongside articles from New York Times, ESPN.com, Chicago Tribune, etc. If you are writing with this thought in mind, you will probably be less likely to offend certain people, and more likely to be more professional and unbiased.
2. It’s not unlikely that links to your articles will be posted (without you even knowing) on forums and message boards. That was the case with my recent bashers who each ran across my article on a popular online forum. So, needless to say, keep in mind that entire communities (other than Bleacher Report’s) might be discussing your article’s topic without you even being there to represent your thoughts and ideas. Keeping this in mind will help you to fully get your point(s) across as clearly as possible in your article. Because, after all, those might be the only words that you get to explain your view on the topic at hand.
3. Try not to give potential bashers ammo. It’s one thing to offer your opinion, but throwing the first punch is a good way to attract a wave of bashers who want to throw punches right back at you. Unfortunately, this is a fight you will not win—regardless of how many responses and punches you are willing to throw back.
4. Research research research. I try to pride myself on doing extensive research for my articles. A misspelled name, school, arena, etc will be a surefire way to make certain fans upset. Sometimes, though, there is no research to be found on specific issues. Which leads us to tips on dealing with bashers…

In one of my articles, I mentioned Clemson as an example of a terrible time of “storming the field” after their non-upset win over Florida State. Since the whole premise of the article was to look at this fad of rushing onto the field regardless of upsets, I felt that using the Clemson example was legitimate. Needless to say, after about two hours of being published, there were already 10-15 comments claiming that Clemson is proud to call that a tradition of theirs—storming the field after every home football game, that is. There was no way for me to research this, and I had never heard of this Clemson tradition (and according to several emails I received, ESPN’s College GameDay made the same mistake I did). So, here are some tips to take from my Clemson fiasco and how I dealt with the situation:

1. In cases where you clearly were wrong (misspelled name, or my Clemson scenario), write a retraction. Often times you will earn respect for admitting your mistake.
2. Think about rewording the article. While I did make some changes to the Clemson article, that was an exception. Just because someone is sending attacking comments or emails doesn’t mean you automatically need to rephrase yourself. Each situation is different, so make sure you aren’t just giving in to the pressure. If you feel that your article is correct as is—keep it that way.
3. I try not to respond to bashers (it wasn’t always that way—it’s something I adopted). If bashers leave comments under my article, I will allow my article to explain my views. Engaging in arguments will only give bashers what they want—attention and a fight. Like I said earlier, this is one fight you can’t win. If someone wants to debate the issue, that’s one thing…but name calling and verbal attacks are another. If someone sends a calm email explaining themselves and why they took offense to the article, I will probably respond. But I certainly will not reward bashers/hate mail with my time and effort responding.

So, in closing, remember that the best of the best will have bashers. Even Peter Gammons has people who disagree with him and want to get into shouting matches. If you make an effort to try and avoid these situations, you’ll probably be better off in the longrun. And, when those bashers do come knocking, remember to always try to take the high road.

Feel free to send me hate mail and bashings regarding this blog post.

-R.H.