The phrase “power of the press” or “power of the pen” is often tossed around in our business, but this is a clear case of the “power” shifting to the Internet and those who are savvy enough to spin the story – and the Web.

Whether you’re easily offended or not, a video shot by a former postal worker in our coverage area on his cell phone in October 2009 is quite shocking.

In the video, which was posted on YouTube a year after the incident took place, a 60-year-old South Shore woman verbally abuses the former postal worker over a piece of certified mail she signed for, then changed her mind. When the postal employee refuses to give the signed card back, she launches into a profanity-laced tirade chock full of racially charged comments.

Regardless of the contents of the letter or the circumstances surrounding why it was delivered certified mail, no human being deserves to be treated or spoken to that way. Not only is the profanity over the top, but the racial nature of the verbal assault was shocking. Surely racism still exists in our country and throughout the world, and even in the towns we cover in Southeastern Massachusetts. It’s just surprising when it rears its ugly head in our area in such a blatant way.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about this story and video, with the biggest being, why is it surfacing more than a year after the incident took place?

The main reason is because of the Internet.

Soon after this incident was caught on video, the postal worker was fired for an “unrelated” incident, according to the United States Postal Service. According to the man, he’s been without a job for more than nine months and wanted to seek some kind of justice. So where does one turn for justice? The Internet. After the former postal worker posted parts 1 and 2 of his video on YouTube recently, it went viral and ended up on one of the many watchdog websites, reddit. Reddit bills itself as the “voice of the internet – news before it happens.” It’s user-generated content and topics run the gamut, much like Thesmokinggun.com and Gawker.com.

Don’t underestimate the power of the Internet and those watchdog sites.

Once the reddit community rallied around this incident and the video, there was an all-out media blitz to the local and Boston markets late last week. It was a little unsettling to see my name, work number and e-mail address prominently displayed on the website with a message to contact the editor in chief of the newspaper to notify us of this shocking story. The campaign resulted in more than 200 e-mails on the subject flooding my inbox in less than a day, and about 30 phone messages overtaking my voicemail. Most of the e-mails were a pre-written plea that were just copied and pasted from the website, but it sure made for a Friday to remember.

So it became a story because of the simple fact that those on the Internet said so. In this case, reddit certainly lived up to its claim of being the voice of the Internet and getting “news” noticed.

The phrase “power of the press” or “power of the pen” is often tossed around in our business, but this is a clear case of the “power” shifting to the Internet and those who are savvy enough to spin the story – and the Web.



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Gregory Mathis is editor-in-chief of GateHouse Media New England’s South unit based in Marshfield, with offices in Plymouth and Raynham.