About Letters to the Editor ....

By Randa Wag­ner, Edi­tor –
Last Thurs­day I had a phone mes­sage from a lady that went as fol­lows: “I got at least six phone calls last night refer­ring to the let­ters of crit­i­cism. They pointed out the let­ters are not to crit­i­cize indi­vid­u­als or busi­nesses, it’s not to be more than 350 words long and it’s to be signed by the first and last name.
These three or four peo­ple who wrote you are so mis­in­formed it’s piti­ful and they threat­ened to can­cel their Sen­tinel. I wish you would review your let­ter to the edi­tor pol­icy.”
She did not leave her name but I feel this call mer­its a response for clarity’s sake.

Any let­ter or col­umn that appears on the Opin­ion page is there for that very rea­son — it’s the writer’s opin­ion. It’s an individual’s oppor­tu­nity to exer­cise their right to free­dom of speech. It doesn’t mean it’s fac­tual — it’s an opin­ion — someone’s view­point or per­cep­tion of a matter.

1. As far as ‘let­ters are not to crit­i­cize indi­vid­u­als or busi­nesses,’ this refers to pri­vate indi­vid­u­als or busi­nesses. If you’re mad at your neigh­bor because he’s a jerk, won’t keep his kids off your prop­erty and his hoard­ing prob­lem has extended out onto his lawn, that’s a civil mat­ter best pur­sued in court or with law enforcement.

A pub­lic employee or office (one that is sup­ported by tax dol­lars) is another mat­ter. Pub­lic offi­cials, school employ­ees, coun­cil mem­bers, town­ship trustees, etc. answer to and are paid by the pub­lic (tax dol­lars). They are account­able to the pub­lic for their job per­for­mance and are there­fore sub­ject to pub­lic scrutiny.

Tele­vi­sion, radio or inter­net com­men­ta­tors have placed them­selves in the pub­lic domain, unlike a min­is­ter in a pri­vate church or the CEO of a large privately-owned com­pany. I think some of them say some of the incred­i­bly bold things they do for the sheer shock value and con­tro­versy it will gen­er­ate. After all, it keeps them on the air, doesn’t it?

2. ‘Let­ters are not to be more than 350 words long.’ Gen­er­ally that’s true. That pol­icy gives a greater num­ber of peo­ple the oppor­tu­nity to be heard on the opin­ion page. How­ever, if there is ample room, I may choose to run a longer let­ter in its entirety. Frankly, I am amazed we get as few let­ters to the edi­tor as we do. I per­son­ally think folks have a lot to say but the fact they have to sign their name to the let­ter is a deter­rent, espe­cially when it is crit­i­cal of school board, coun­cil or town­ship board mem­bers. These peo­ple are their neigh­bors and the reper­cus­sions of expos­ing an impro­pri­ety or mis­con­duct are too great a risk for the let­ter writer.

3. ‘It’s to be signed by the first and last name.’ There was a let­ter from Donna Carver last week that started in one col­umn and car­ried over into the next. I think this con­fused more than one reader so, from now on, I will indi­cate a con­tin­u­ance with any let­ter that has to move into an adjoin­ing column.

4. ‘These three or four peo­ple who wrote you are so mis­in­formed it’s piti­ful and they threat­ened to can­cel their Sen­tinel.’  To reit­er­ate, let­ters are opin­ions and if the writer is ‘mis­in­formed,’ any cit­i­zen is wel­come to write a rebut­tal let­ter and state their opin­ion to that end. I don’t expect all our read­ers to agree with the columns I write, or the pieces we pub­lish by other colum­nists, sen­a­tors, con­gress­men or local politi­cians. There’s a rea­son every news­pa­per has an OPINION page. As far as a reader can­cel­ing a sub­scrip­tion because they don’t like some­thing we reported on or printed, please remem­ber this is a NEWS­pa­per. It’s our oblig­a­tion to inform read­ers of events and news in the county, as well as offer infor­ma­tion we feel is rel­e­vant or impor­tant to the gen­eral population.

5. “I wish you would review your let­ter to the edi­tor pol­icy.” I did. Please note the changes I made, for clarification’s sake, in the box on the April 4 edition’s Opin­ion page.

There are many days when it’s not much fun to be the edi­tor. I use my best judge­ment but I’m human and make mis­takes, just like every­one else. If it’s my fault, you’ll get an apol­ogy, and I’ll do my darn­d­est not to repeat the mis­take. If it’s not my fault, I’ll apol­o­gize any­way and try to rec­tify the mat­ter. Some of the let­ters to the edi­tor are real ‘iffy’: I strug­gle over whether or not to print them because they are con­tro­ver­sial, yet I do not want to deny some­one their right to free speech. There are some that are so inflam­ma­tory, racist or slan­der­ous I do not print them. You never see those, of course, but they come in from time to time and I explain to the writer why I will not print it.

Whether or not you agree with this response to the caller’s mes­sage, I hope it helps explain why things are han­dled the way they are. If you don’t agree, you are very wel­come to write a let­ter and let me know. I wel­come your opinion.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Apr 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.