I love getting comments from readers of this blog. True, I’m hardly overwhelmed by feedback but as an occasional blogger I don’t expect this.

I like the way the media now seek a two way conversation with readers, viewers and listeners. For too long they regarded them as a nuisance – especially if they were complaining about a mistake. Yet I confess to a certain healthy scepticism about the way media organisations use feedback. Take the BBC. Its otherwise superb online news site peppers its news stories with apparently random comments from readers. It may seem more inclusive – but I don’t turn to BBC news to find out what Dave from Derby thinks about Britain’s foreign policy.

So I was thrilled to read a deeply heretical article in Media Guardian a week ago (sorry for being slow) in which Joel Stein from the LA Times says he doesn’t care what you or I think about his column. (Read it here – this is the original LA Times version as Media Guardian bizarrely requires you to register.)

To give a flavour:

"Where does this end? Does Philip Roth have to put his email at the end of his book? Does Tom Hanks have to hold up a sign with his email at the end of his movie? Should your hotel housekeeper leave her email on your sheets? Are you starting to see how creepy this is?"

Stein, like any good columnist, takes an argument to the limit. But he makes a good point. If he engaged with everyone who has an opinion about what he wrote, he’d never write anything. Just look at The Guardian’s Comment is Free pages – even run of the mill articles draw hundreds of comments, many incoherent, ranting outbursts that reflect badly on their authors – or would do if they revealed their identities. I prefer to read the more reflective comments on the blogs of people like Stuart Bruce, Andrew Grant-Adamson and Linda and Carol’s Passionate Blog (to name just a few). Much more the kind of community that social media should be about.