You will likely scoff, but I do have a fan club for my blogs.
There’s my mother…my daughter…um…and occasionally my brother (him liking a tweet post of my column happens, just not as much as I’d like).
Outside of that, compliments are hard to come by. People who criticize always vastly outnumber the positive commenters.
People like “Mike in Burnaby.”
To him, I write like a serial killer. And not just any serial killer, but one Charles Whitman, the former U.S. Marine who is also known as the “Texas Tower Sniper.” In 1966, he went to the top of a tower, and shot and killed a whole bunch of people.
“Mike in Burnaby” referenced Whitman in his email subject line, “Look, up in the clock tower, it’s Chris Campbell.”
His point, I guess, is that I take aim at people with my column.
“Buddy, you complain about everything,” he writes. “Your whole platform is to moan, snipe and nitpick … You lecture and pontificate, with snippets of humour that don’t disguise your core M.O. - getting likes by finger wagging. You teeter on shaming, bullying, scoffing.”
“Mike in Burnaby” isn’t the first person to say this. My column is not for everyone. Then again, no column is for everyone. If I was going to write a column that didn’t offend someone, it would just be an empty space.
After 30 years in journalism, I’ve come to realize that someone will always be upset about something I write.
Even when I write so-called positive articles about fundraisers or people doing good things in the community (I actually write a lot of these, but few people seem to notice), I still get snotty messages on Facebook or in my email inbox.
Even when I write fluffy columns about how great Burnaby is, I still get messages yelling at me wondering if “this was a slow news day.”
See, some people get offended if something isn’t hard-hitting enough for their liking.
“Mike in Burnaby” called my column topics “low-hanging fruit” and on that point, I disagree. I write about racism, drunk drivers, poorly designed city infrastructure, speeding drivers and, lately, people who aren’t taking COVID-19 seriously. Like my recent columns about people deliberately going the wrong way on the Deer Lake trail, despite the City of Burnaby signs saying so.
All of these topics and more are complicated and many of them are about people who are putting other people’s lives at risk.
So, no, I’m not polite about it. I use strong language. I call out bad behaviour because, as I said, it’s putting people’s lives at risk. I’m fed up with being polite about all those folks who think the rules don’t apply to them.
But I get it. That strong approach isn’t for everyone. As I said, pleasing everyone is impossible. And many people disagree with me. I wrote the other day defending Burnaby South MP Jagmeet Singh for calling a Bloc MP a “racist” and a journalist friend of mine strongly disagreed. And that’s a good thing. It’s healthy to disagree.
I do, however, please some people. I studied our website’s analytics and I wrote more than 100 articles in May (including some happy stories) and about 600,000 people read those articles.
And I do get the occasional fan letter in response.
“I very much appreciate your way with words,” wrote Jacqueline. “You illustrate the story wonderfully and I look forward to anything you’ve written.”
Hey, it happens.
What’s funny is that “Mike in Burnaby” admitted that he agrees in “principle with most of your rants individually,” but that I sound “complainy.”
So he wants me to “dial it back.”
Sorry, bub, but that’s just not my style.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
