I had a nice exchange yesterday with Barry Goldberg about Kim Hendren’s “That Jew” comment and subsequent coverage of it. Mr. Golberg posted a thoughtful comment that I hope you will read. During our conversation he wondered at what point the nature of the coverage of Mr. Hendren perpetuates existing labels and stereotypes (backwards and racist come to mind).

On Twitter, an enthusiastic Arkie Tweeter, melissaar, raised a similar concern. She wrote, “Kim Hendren was bad for the Republican Party and bad for Arkansas. We don’t need anymore publicity regarding bigotry.”

Not too long after Mr. Hendren’s episode it was revealed that Arkansas GOP chairman, Doyle Webb, had been traveling the state giving speeches attacking Democratic state Rep. Kathy Webb’s sexual orientation in an effort, one can only presume, to fire up the far right (fire them up for what, exactly? Kim Hendren’s charred toast. The GOP’s shooting blanks when it comes to candidates for any other statewide office).

Mr. Webb’s comments drew the ire of the editorial board of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette today who declared that the GOP “must be bankrupt in the ideas department for its party chairman to resort to so blatant and irrelevant an appeal to low prejudice.”

Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett wrote a column a few weeks back arguing that no one should be writing about the disclosure of the list of those that supported a constitutional amendment in Arkansas to prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting children or serving as foster parents. His argument was that it would only entrench those that were anti-gay.

(Of course, Mr. Brummett jumps on the Webb bandwagon today prompting Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times to write, “But wait. Won’t calling Webb out on this merely harden his opposition to enlightenment?”)

Taking the concerns and observations of Mr. Golberg, @melissaar, Mr. Brummett and Mr. Brantley together, is it possible for news coverage of hate and bigotry to become counterproductive?