What ever is happening to newspapers, once thunderers and proud defenders of freedom of speech?

Well, it's obvious: fewer people are reading them. And that, I strongly suspect, is because they've become so, well, wimpy.

Case in point is this storm-in-a-teacup over the use of the word "fey." We're told that, while Webster's "doesn't seem to suggest a slur," some people disagree. So, now the rule is: The word should not be "used knowingly in any reference to LGBTQ people."

How pathetic! People really have to stop taking offence even when none is intended.

For example, I'm an "old" man. But if a Globe writer were to describe me as one, I might not like it. So should the Globe then ban the word "old" whenever reporting on old people? Of course not.

Whatever happened to just sucking it up . . . or growing a pair?