COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Today, many Inside Vero advertisers received an unsigned letter containing, word-for-word, the text of an email message utility activist Charlie Wilson sent Monday afternoon. “Attention Business Owners! Cancel Your Ad In Inside Vero Immediately!,” the letter read.

Whoever sent the letters containing the text of Wilson’s email message hand addressed them, but failed to include a return address.   That’s right.  The letters went out unsigned and without a return address.

Tuesday morning, Wilson was on WTTB’s Morning Magazine disparaging Inside Vero’s reporting and slandering me personally, including accusing me of publishing a newspaper that attacks Christians.  The purpose of Wilson’s false and outrageous remarks was clearly to orchestrate an advertising boycott of Inside Vero.

Wilson told WTTB’s listeners he planned to continue his campaign against Inside Vero by contact our advertisers personally.

Not surprisingly, I received a number of calls from advertisers today, none of whom took kindly to being told what do to with their marketing dollars. Many of them also had a few choice adjectives to describe someone who would send such a letter anonymously: “slimy;” “cowardly;” “gutless.”

One advertiser wrote, “We did get a hate letter telling us to stop advertising in your newsletter or we will lose customers if we do not. We do not get involved in politics with our customers, but after reading this letter, we agree with Mark. In a couple of months, we hope to go to both issues per month. Tricks on these haters. Now we really want to support the Inside Vero message!”

I am reminded of the cartoon picturing two men standing on a street corner next to a sign that reads, “Absolutely no machete juggling.”  One man turns to his friend and say, “Why do I all of the sudden feel the irresistible urge to juggle machetes?”

The answer, of course, is that people do not appreciate being told what they should and should not do.