This is no place for letters of mass production
As many readers know, one of my favorite parts of the day is reading the mail. In the not-so-distant past, mail meant envelopes of all sorts, handwritten or typed, with stamps and return-address stickers that reflected the personality of the sender. Such envelopes hold the joy, hopes, praise, outrage, criticism and confusion that confront each of us from time to time and sometimes all at once. I like the contents of letters. I like deciphering handwriting so that I can go, “Aha, so that’s what it said.” I recognize our regular letter writers’ penmanship or typewriter ribbon before slitting the envelope open to peek and see what has gotten their goat this time.
And sometimes a letter is filled with such passion, such opinion that the only way to truly appreciate it is to read it out loud with all the voice inflection and drama that brings it to life. Of course, others here sometimes think I’m nuts when I say, “Listen to this.”
Letters are great fun and a way to gauge what is really on people’s minds.
Sometimes it’s even fun to look at the way a letter is addressed. Most of them stick with the standard Letters to the Editor, Herald-Standard. On occasion I’ve received mail for “Harold Standard.” And recently I received correspondence addressed to Mr. Ed Page. I’m assuming that a more formal writer might have addressed that one to Mr. Editorial Page, but that’s just a guess.
As I said before, letters used to be delivered mostly in the daily mail. Not so anymore. Just as many come through e-mail. While they lack the touch that only personal penmanship can deliver, they more than make up for it with creative punctuation and capitalization to drive home a point.
Regardless of how the mail is delivered, Letters to the Editor are one of the most interesting parts of a newspaper, in my humble opinion. And the reason they are is because they give individuals a voice in public affairs that they ordinarily wouldn’t have. They can point out an injustice, bring attention to something that might have gone unrecognized. They do make a difference.
I’ve written before on this topic, but it is worth repeating. Many a letter goes unpublished simply because the letter writer forgot to include a name, address and phone number. This is vital information, as we will not publish a letter without a name, and we will not publish without verification.
My files are jammed with great letters that will never find their way into print because of this omission. How sad, I often think, that someone would take the time to pen such words and then doom their chance of readership or the camaraderie of hearing others say, “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
I am often dismayed as well at the number of people who call attempting to persuade me to write an editorial saying exactly what they think on a topic. I always encourage them to take paper in hand and do it themselves, but they say they are too busy or aren’t great with words or don’t want to attach their name to their ideas. These things I can’t understand. If their opinion is so worthy that they wish to see it in print then they ought to take the time to jot a few lines.
But what is even worse these days are letter writers taking the credit for another’s work. There are plentiful sites on the Internet devoted to particular causes that ask visitors to send letters to newspapers. All they have to do is add their name to a “sample letter,” click a couple of places and off it goes.
Opinion editors have a name for this: astroturf for the fake grass-roots effort implied by these submissions. I also think of them as letters of mass production that are attempting to destroy what is truly great about Letters to the Editor, the one spot that is counted on to give individuals a place to express opinions that are unique to them on topics that are important to them.
Please take the time to write your own letter rather than fall for this. Your letter might not be grammatically correct (I’ll repair that), but it will reflect your views, not some canned talking points.
Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor. E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.