Internet trolls serve as a constant irritation for political reporters, and most of us simply grin and bear it. But it became apparent this week that journalists, when facing snarky criticism from a professional colleague, can throw a hefty punch.

A verbal donnybrook broke out Monday on Twitter between two fairly high-profile Michigan writers, Susan Demas of Inside Michigan Politics and Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker. It quickly got out of hand, with Demas writing a column to defend herself and her husband, Democratic political consultant Joe DiSano, aggressively entering the fray.

What started out as Neavling questioning Demas’ objectivity on the subject of Bernie Sanders erupted into a full-on assault from the Muckraker writer.

Neavling questioned Demas’ professional ethics and called her a “capitalist, not a journalist.” When DiSano, an outspoken Sanders critic, began to fire back on Twitter and Facebook, spouting a few F-bombs in the process, Neavling called him a “sick pervert” and a “sick son of a bitch”.

Before it was over, Neavling mocked DiSano for defending his “wifey” and concluded that Demas, too, was “sick.”

As Demas began to post Neavling’s harsh insults online, he responded that she should “read slowly” when discerning his meaning and that her retorts indicated that she “argue(s) like a 5-year-old.”

Because I know all three of the participants involved in this debacle, and because a story I had written played a key role in this tit-for-tat, I weighed in online, trying to play the role of referee – with limited success.

(Full disclosure: I recently began writing for one of Demas’ publications, Inside Michigan Politics, as a contributor.)

Several years ago I reported that Macomb County Commissioner Phil DiMaria apparently engaged in an erotic photographic hobby of capturing nude women on film. A few years later, when the Eastpointe Democrat ran for state House, DiSano, as the campaign consultant for a competing candidate, hammered DiMaria on this topic in robo-calls that went too far. DiMaria sued; a settlement was reached.

Here’s what I wrote on Facebook in two Tuesday night posts:

Good Lord — what is going on here? Stop it with the emotional outbursts and the Trump-like rhetoric.
Listen, I broke this story years ago and it centered on Macomb County Commissioner Phil DiMaria extending his photography hobby to allegedly taking pics of nude women — not children. I captured the website before it was abruptly taken down.
Joe DiSano perhaps took things a bit too far in a 2012 robo-call campaign attacking DiMaria, when he was running for state rep ….

… This is just way out of control. 
Let’s just agree that Steve has engaged in some good journalism over the past year or two and Joe has served as a forceful Democratic campaign advocate.
OK? End of story.

In her column, Demas pointed out that she and Neavling, both of whom express a liberal-leaning political persuasion, are simply trying to make a living in the new online journalism territory in which countless websites and bloggers compete with newspapers that enjoy a long legacy.

But Neavling now threatens to write an expose on DiSano — a Macomb County native, an instigator, an agitator — who treats politics like a full-contact sport. His hardball campaign tactics are not necessarily news.

But at a time when the overall media’s reputation is suffering, what would be news, regrettably, is for fellow journalists to act like vengeful trolls rather than watchdogs who seek the truth.

Recent Posts: