A LIKELY STORY: TO THE CALLER WHO THREATENED ME LAST WEEK

Responsibility has become a four-letter word in this country, and we all want to blame someone else for our stupid actions.

I once read that if intelligence is ever present, it is always extinguished by anger.

I'll admit that's kind of a highfalutin way of talking that is rarely used in casual Southeast Missouri conversations, apart from the college campus or the bookstore coffee bars, but I know what the writer meant.

It's the same thing as saying that when you're mad, though you may not mean it, you might say or do something really dumb. And this belief was reaffirmed last week when I checked my phone messages at work and heard this flattering message:

"Hey, listen here you (expletive), you put my name and my picture in the (expletive) paper and I'm innocent ... until proven guilty. Something's going to be done about this, so you better watch your (expletive expletive), all right?"

A threat? Unless of course the caller intended to write a scathing letter to the editor, I think so.

I take it the man -- who had been arrested on drug and guns charges and is not the kind of guy you want to irritate -- was not pleased by his being brought into the public eye.

This person, whom I am sure has cooled off by now, would be really embarrassed by his brief absence of clarity, so I won't name him again here. But I would like to explain a few things to him, if he might take a moment.

First of all, when someone is arrested for drug and gun charges, it is newsworthy. I don't know you from Adam and you have my word it was nothing personal. It's my job. And if charges are dropped or you are acquitted, I will (and would have) written a story about that, too.

And sir, yours is not the first complaint I have ever received about a story I have written. I get them occasionally, from someone who feels I took a particular stance in a story when objectivity was the goal. Or maybe I left someone out who was in a large way responsible for what the story was all about. Or even maybe in an obituary when I say the deceased was survived by 43 great-grandparents, like I did last weekend, I might get a complaint.

Reporters get complaints on occasion. Some of them are warranted; some aren't. Complaining to a newspaper is by no means nothing new. And while your ... complaint ... was not the first I have ever received, it is by far one of the most unjustified.

Somehow, you believe it is my fault that your name and picture appeared in this paper, don't you?

Despite the fact that everything in the story was 100 percent accurate -- you were arrested and charged, were you not? -- I am somehow to blame for your predicament.

And when it's not me, it's probably someone else to blame for what you do, isn't it? I mean, obviously, YOU aren't to blame, are you? It wasn't YOUR fault cops arrested you, was it? They were hassling you, just like they always do, weren't they?

You're the victim here, right? Why doesn't anybody understand that?

Sir, maybe you ought to look up responsible in the dictionary. Beside it, you'll find words like accountability, duty and obligation.

As a journalist, by putting the names and pictures of people like you in the paper, I'm living up to my responsibility.

Now why don't you live up to yours?

Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.