Editorial from NorthIowaToday.com Publisher Matt Marquardt –
For about a year, I have received rather nasty, threatening letters periodically from an entity which refers to itself as the “South Side Boys”.
Since this unknown entity refuses to reveal itself, and since I am very well aware that it reads NIT everyday, I will respond to its letters right here in public.
The South Side Boys entity apparently dislikes me and NorthIowaToday.com. In its letters, it says I am wasting my time and that I contribute nothing to Mason City. Mixed in there are plenty of threats of varying degrees, plus whatever insults it thinks are amusing. The letters now come to my home instead of my business PO box.
The letters from this timorous letter-writer mean about as much to me as a stray cat who hisses when I jog by. It is very apparent that this entity is extremely angry and disturbed about NIT stories and editorials that expose the various good-old-boy systems that are rotting Mason City to the core. Every time I mention Eric Bookmeyer (especially), Brent Willet, Robin Anderson, or some other crony, a letter appears. It is very touchy about certain subjects, mostly criticism of any kind of Eric, the city council, the chamber, the downtown, or various businesses that have helped themselves to heaps of public funding so they can turn a profit.
I don’t know who exactly the letter-writing entity is – anonymous trolls with fifth-grade writing skills and hours of free time come cheap – but really, it needs to up its game. In it’s last letter – which I received today – it writes “we have asked everyone in the group to stop reading NIT”. My response: Is that so? Your entity has been writing to me for a year – letter after letter – and you are still pleading with your own “members” to stop reading NIT? Either you are not very persuasive, NIT is just too alluring, or you forgot that your group has only one member, who is glued to NIT like a label on a beer bottle.
To the South Side Boys entity, I say this: Be not angry with my success; it is merely a product of hard work and good intentions for my readers, nearly 600 of which are paid subscribers. They deserve the truth, which they have been deprived of for decades by the corrupt, “old” media radio, TV and newspaper we have all been subjected to. I am flattered that you are smitten by me; perhaps obsessed, and definitely tormented. I am not a counselor, but for help with your anguish, I suggest you phone the good folks at the North Iowa Mental Health Center at 641-424-2075. Maybe they have some extra Zoloft for you. In the meantime, while you battle your inner demons and fear of writing the name your mom gave you, I will continue to snicker when your letters show up and gently place them in the paper shredder.
