By John Pierce
There is a woman in Forest City, N.C., who doesn’t care for my journalistic efforts. She is not alone, so I’ve developed fairly tough skin over the years of expressing myself in print and online.
But rejection is never warmly received — especially when it comes via BlackBerry on an otherwise relaxing Friday evening.
The subject line read: “Please!!” Then followed: “Please stop this magazine from coming to this address.” At least she used “magic words” — closing with “Thanks.”
Unlike some, she didn’t call me any names. But she was emphatic that our monthly contribution to her mailbox (that apparently someone else purchased for her information and failed enlightenment) was not desired.
I am glad to comply, because the feeling of getting something neither sought nor desired is well known to me. At last count, about 20 percent of my life is spent “unsubscribing” to email lists.
The most recent offender was Hickory Farms. I like their Gouda cheese, but don’t need email blasts offering gift boxes for the holiday season. Then there are those who want to get my web site more traffic, to name me to “Who’s Who” of something or to provide certain enhancement products at a reduced rate.
And because the word “Baptist” is in the name of our publication, I am inundated with all kinds of emails from publicists who assume my interest in religious-right efforts to fight all social challenges to their flat-earth thinking.
Uh … no. Thanks. Please remove, please. Thanks.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
