Monday, November 13, 2006

Follow-up: Crosswalk Administrator's Horrible E-mail Story

I received the following cc of a letter to the powers-that-be at Salem Communications concerning the reprehensible actions of Fritz Alberti (admin at the "family" of sites run by Salem) when a "community" member was in immediate danger. I have edited nothing except the writer's name (per Badge of Honor policy).

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to discuss the discriminatory behavior of Fred Alberti (aka
Fritz), the Manager of your site Crossdaily.com and its parralel chatroom.
It involves an ongoing attitude of disrespect, discriminatory enforcement of
policy, and shockingly anti women remarks made often and publicly by
Alberti.

In addition to many other instances I bring to your attention the shocking
exchange involving a woman who had confided online that she was in extreme criminal danger and was certain it was going to happen again. (I am including a link to this email correspondence between a fellow chatroom woman trying to help her and Alberti.)
http://abadgeofhonor.blogspot.com/2006/06/crosswalk-administrators-horrible-e.html

Myself along with many other fellow Christian chatters are deeply shocked by the manner in which Alberti responded to these Women in need. I have spoken with Alberti about this matter and he personally confirms the quotes and in a terrifying manner defended that the wife should submit to her husband.

Regarding his decision, if he is in fact following policy perhaps it is one
that needs to change. Admittedly I am not a lawyer, but I understand that
confidentiality laws for websites of this nature do not apply if they
believe a crime is being committed. I would expect a web manager to be
familiar with this.

Apart from his decision of inaction, the condescending nature and tone of his reply is nothing short of disrespect and speaks loudly to his public disdain for women. We ask for action to be taken to address this as many of us have lost faith in the direction of this chatroom and consequently Salem Communication's views on the rights of women.

We feel it is a very serious sign of the viewpoint of this admin. He has
engaged several opportunities to express his deep belief in women's
inferiority and I myself have witnessed many examples of this through his
discriminatory behavior toward Women on the site he directs. There have been many other instances of this. If any further evidence is necessary of
Alberti exercising his discriminatory views of Women as administrator we can easily provide them.

We request an immediate respectful and public apology to be posted by
Alberti (on the posting site and the chat room) and his resignation.
Anything short of this will be considered by us and by the public to be an
official affirmation of his viewpoint as being that of Salem Communications. We all make mistakes but our Christian leaders must be the most steadfast in sheparding the flock. I would never suggest that Alberti be banned from chatting, but he is not fit to be an official representative of the site or the chatroom.

Many I have spoken with wished to be more public using several of our (very large) congregations as a platform to condemn the site, but I disagreed because i believe our voices will be heard. We have decided that you should be made aware first and given the opportunity to remedy the situation as we believe you will wish to. Your sites have been a joy and a blessing to us all. It would break my heart to feel we are no longer welcome. As I am sure you have probably not been aware of this practice I hope you appreciate this alert. Your action taken in this matter will show great courage and will be deeply respected.

Thank you and god bless,

[letter writer]

Given the bad-mannered nature of one rejected response to the earlier entry here, which I received even before I could get this letter posted, I'd say that "LW's" letter struck a nerve with someone over at the Salem "family." As with all Badge of Honor comments, any comments submitted must conform to the posted guidelines, or they WILL be rejected. Whatever you happen to think the writers and I are "full of," keep your comments civil if you want them to be accepted.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

fritz is such a jerk. please let us know if anything ever comes of this letter.

they probably won't fire him, but an apology would be nice. we'll never see it, but it would be nice nonetheless.

Robbyrob said...

I have recently been banned from Crosswalk/Crossdaily chat. The original excuse for this is that I failed to comply with a request to not discuss christian doctrine or theology because I am myself not a christian. I accepted this restriction, but was later told that I could not discuss spirituality in any way, shape, or form. When I informed other members of the chat of this restriction imposed on me, I was immediately banned from chatting on this site altogether.
I have sent several emails to both Fritz, his superiors at Salem web networks, and their superiors at Salem Communications to no avail. I'm just hoping that this is a proper venue to discuss this issue.

Robbyrob said...

Do you know if anything was ever done with this? I know a bunch of people who've complained about Fritz in the past.

Anonymous said...

Just over 4 months ago i registered at Crosswalk after being bored with some secular chat rooms and the sex chat that occurs on them, i thought i would give this religious one a go.
After a couple of weeks in the community i got to know Fritz. I told him i was a lesbian, yet he never made me feel anything but welcome. He knew i didn't really have much interest in the ethos of the community initially, yet he was still encouraging and open with me. Four months on and i am seriously into bible study, my partner and i split and i am living celebate now trying to figure out who God is to me. My point is, his encouragement, time and patience has been one of the vehicles used to get me to where i am right now.

Unlike many people who visit the chatrooms, Fritz has always treated me with respect as a woman and has given me clear indication of the equality in which i stand along side a man.

I have also witnessed Fritz put himself out on several occasions to help members of the community.

I also recognise that when i don't understand the actions of another person, it may just be because in their capacity as admin, they are often working with more information than i am privy to.

I have not seen evidence of the accusations leveled against him here. My experience has been just the opposite in fact.

Badge of Honor Postmaster said...

I'm quite glad to see that Fritz has behaved to you in a more Christlike manner than with all these other commenters, Salsadip. One reason you may not have seen his vindictive side is that he is able to silence and ban people completely from Crosswalk, and the rules are such that no one can talk about what he's done to them. That's why this site exists. (Sorry, all, for the long lag in moderating comments.)

So again, I'm glad you haven't experienced the awful things that so many others have. I would caution you to be careful, however. Fritz is not known for his tolerance of much of anything except extreme conservative views.

It may be, however, that in recent months all the formal complaints about him to his bosses may have resulted in some censure of his heavy-handed, capricious "moderating." One can hope...