An apology
Over the weekend I was emailed a post entitled “The sisterhood of the travelling racist jacket”. It was an opinion piece on the comments between Anne Tolley and Metiria Turei about who can and can’t wear flash jackets to parliament.
I read the piece and I didn’t agree with it, whatsoever. No no no. However I still went ahead and published it. And for that I’m sorry.
I’m not sorry if it caused offence, I’m not sorry if it “hurt your eyes” or played the race card ignorantly, I’m not sorry for any of its content. I’m sorry that I published it and enabled you to read it.
I have to take responsibility for this site, and that means conducting editorial control. I have rejected two pieces in the nine or so months we’ve been going, both times for character assassination with no substance. I should have exercised the same control here. I should have trusted my first instincts.
A few months ago, we wrote a piece on gun control. An american gun enthusiast saw the piece and asked if he could write a rebuttal and I said “absolutely”. Because that’s what I wanted this site to be. I wanted the Ruminator to be a place where differing opinions could be heard and discussed and argued about. I wanted it to be a mature place, not one where flame wars erupted. And by and large that’s exactly what we’ve got. We’ve had heaps of well reasoned, well written pieces. We’ve had some that are less well reasoned, and less well written, but on the whole I think the quality has been good.
I wanted this site to be a place where people could be published. We have a sizeable audience now, so anything that does get published will be seen by a few eyes. I thought that if people could see their work published alongside the likes of Ali Ikram, Judith Collins, Metiria Turei etc it would encourage more people to write. I really love good writing. Whether I agree with it or not.
And yet I still published that piece.
So I just want to say sorry again. I take full responsibility for it. I had the choice to publish or reject, and I chose to publish. So it falls on my head.
