From the editor's cauldron

Guest editorial

To the editor of PROBEmoter,

I was disturbed and, frankly, embarrassed by your editorial in the October-December 2002 issue in which you announced that you are "totally opposed to electronic-only bulletins." You made several related statements ("without hard copy you have no chapter history"; "public relations are difficult to maintain without a printed bulletin" and "more often than not the chapter member who gets an e-bulletin is not going to print it off to read later") but those are completely unsupported assertions. With such statements, you do not make a persuasive case against electonic [sic] bulletins, but simply show your predjudice [sic] against them.

My own chapter bulletin, The Echo, is what you would call an electronic bulletin and has been since July. We compose the newsletter electronically and convert it to a PDF file that is then posted on our website, and a message is send out to its several hundred subscribers, who can then easily access it, either reading it on-line or printing it to read later, as most do. It [sic] this way, money, time, and paper are saved; photos are in lively color; any errors that escape the proofing process can be fixed retroactively in minutes. Subscribers can read the bulletin the same day it is finished, allowing the bulletin to be fresh and current with each issue, and can forward the link immediately for free to as many people as they think might be interested. The format has been almost universally well received. I do not believe that our electronic bulletin lacks quality because it is not originally on paper. If you have web access, please go to www.harmonizers.org, go to The Echo page and judge for yourself.

As anyone who knows me will confirm, I am no techno-geek and do not rush to embrace new technology. But when the advantages to my Chapter and my subscribers as [sic] so clear, I consider it my responsibility to use the technology for their benefit. Given your editorial, however, I cannot help but wonder what your position would have been when the printing press or the typewriter were [sic] invented. No wonder people think barbershoppers are stuck in the past!

Obviously, you yourself do not appreciate the advantages that technology has brought to bulletin editors and their readers. If you do not wish to avail yourself of them, that is your choice. But, when you yourself admit in your editorial that many of our fellow editors are eager to make the transition to the technologies of the present, it is appropriate to use your position as PROBEmoter editor to foist your own predjudice [sic] on them? I'm sure that they can intelligently make that decision for themselves. I should think that it is the responsibility of the leaders of PROBE to help its members look forward, not backward. If you do not wish to help them, please refer them to someone who will.

Scipio Garling, editor, The Echo
scipio.garling@verizon.net

P.S. And, in answer to your question, I look forward to the day that I can read the PROBEmoter on-line. Perhaps then it will have nice photos, come out more often than quarterly, and I'll be able forward [sic] it proudly to others with having [sic] to find a copying machine to do so.