The last word

I don't watch much network TV news, but somebody turned on NBC News with Brian Williams the other night, and I caught the tail end where he read viewer mail (the segment referred to here). The letters were all critical of NBC, which is fine; we make a point of giving letters that disagree with us priority. But the sole purpose of reading the letters seemed to be for Williams to tell the viewers, in drippingly condescending tones, what idiots they were and how unforgiveably wrong their pitiful opinions were. If we did that, readers would run us out of town. It's our page, so we get to use most of the space for our purposes. But, except for extraordinary circumstances, readers who bother to express their views should be given the courtesy of having the last word.