Anonymity of social media breeds bad behavior

When I started out in the newspaper business, you had to move the old manual typewriter to the side so you could work at the newfangled word processor.

And I was well into my career when digital layout came to the newspaper business. Before that editors would lay out pages by hand, with hot wax applied to the back of copy as it was cut and pasted on the page with a ruler and an X-Acto knife.

And to be honest, I kind of miss that wax smell. It would hang in the air the same way the second hand would weigh on you as it got closer and closer to deadline.

That may not make me a dinosaur, but it means I’ve worked with more than a few who wore a fedora with a card stuck into the hatband that read PRESS.

It also means that I am part of a generation of journalists who still think the term “social media” refers to after-deadline drinks with a big side order of war stories and tall tales.

I’ve caught up a little, although it takes me a second to catch up when someone asks if I can tweet something. Tweet?

I may not be entirely sure about Instagram and Snapchat, but I have Facebook down pretty well and fill it with pictures of the grandkids. It’s tailor-made for stories about the grandson wandering around the house saying “Cupcake! Where are you?” And no, he wasn’t talking about a pet by that name. He was calling out to actual cupcakes, making him the first in the family to qualify as a Cupcake Whisperer.

That aside, social media has had me concerned for a long time.

Anyone who has ever sat in the cheap seats at a ballgame knows they’re likely to hear something that can’t be repeated at Sunday school.

The stuff people yell at a ballgame can range from the pithy to the profane.

I still remember a Spokane Indians game where the umpire walked over to the stands after a particularly hard half-inning on the home team. While he mopped his brow and drank a cup of water, an older lady smiled at him sweetly and asked, “Does your mother sleep on the porch or under the porch?”

Only time I’ve ever seen an umpire do a spit take.

They say the only constant in life is change, and change isn’t always for the better.

Social media adds a new element to the game experience. It’s a great way to stay up on your favorite players and teams.

But it also comes with a dark side. Social media has become a place where people can say things they would never dream of saying in public. Anonymity makes them bold.

There’s a video that came across my Facebook feed last week that I found disturbing. In it, men sit down, face-to-face with sportswriters Julie DiCaro (columnist for The Cauldron) and Sarah Spain (ESPN) and read some of the things written to them on social media.

I would have thought we’d gotten past the whole brouhaha about women sportswriters a long time ago.

We should have. Some of the best sportswriters in the business are women, and that’s been true for as long as I can remember.

Christine Brennan proved that at the Miami Herald in the early 1980s and later at the Washington Post, where she covered the NFL in the nation’s capital. Sally Jenkins proved it as well. The daughter of sports writing legend Dan Jenkins (Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest), Sally has done it all at the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated.

The work of Miami Herald columnist Linda Robertson has appeared in the annual anthology series “The Best American Sports Writing” six times in its 20-year history. Only five writers have been included more often.

I worked for Cathy Henkel at the Seattle Times, a pioneer sports editor and a founding member of a group with the greatest acronym ever created: the Association for Women in Sports Media. AWSM. Pronounced Awesome. And I’ve worked alongside a number of women I’ve been proud to call colleagues.

So I was horrified at some of the things a handful of idiots had written and tweeted to DiCaro and Spain. And so were the men brought in to read these obscenity-filled piles of drivel. They frequently would apologize before reading some of the most vile messages. Few could manage to look these women in the eye as they read words no human being should ever be called.

I applaud these two women for exposing the kinds of things they deal with on a regular basis just for doing their job.

Because that’s what they were doing. Their job. A job they are good at and for which they deserve to be treated with respect.

I can’t stop people from being idiots, and the anonymity that social media offers will always bring out this kind of venom and bile.

Criticism is fair. I like hearing from readers and I appreciate different viewpoints.

If you can’t say it out loud, if you can’t say it to your wife, your sister, your girlfriend, why write it to someone you don’t know? Be civil. We’re better than that, people.

Like Aretha said, “All I’m asking for is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”