Love Letters to/from an Editor?
The Dominion
Post Editor has recently begun enforcing a policy of one letter per reader per
month. I checked with the editor and her reply is that a reader/writer is
expected to submit one letter only per month – not several or more from which
one might be selected. In the “Letter from the Editor” (Dominion Post: Opinion
Page B4, 5th June) the rationale given by her is that too many of
the same letter-writer names are hogging the space.
The editor
wants to bring more new names to the letters page. There are quite a number of
fish hooks in this little issue. Some of the fish hooks are bound not to bring
in a huge number of new letter writers. Regular writers will have had their
letters published through the letters editor considering, for we hope good
reasons, that the letter was worthy of prominence in the first place. To me the
“too many of the same names” argument does not hold water. There are a lot of
good letter writers going around.
I was a
semi-regular letters contributor but not so long ago gave it away mainly for
the reasons of having good letters rejected and for having letters needlessly
hacked about by editors. I have checked my list and through 2020 I sent 16
letters. I don’t have a count of how many made the cut.
The editor
in one breath lays down a set of draconian rules for letter writers and later
with regard to feedback she professes to “I love hearing from you. Keep those
emails coming”. Hullo!
In a second feedback
item I proposed the following case with numbers:
“If you had say 312 (52 x 6)
publishing days per year it equates to an average 26 days per month. The
current average number of letters published per day seems to be around 8 which
means say 208 (26 x 8) separate readers could be selected in any given month.
By allowing only one letter per writer per month you could theoretically get by
with the same 208 contributors each month forever more”.
“That would not work. You would
really need to attract four, five or six times as many contributors to maintain
choice and quality etc. I could assist greatly in those areas but have chosen
to abstain in the meantime for reasons previously outlined to you. The crucial
question here is can your circulation numbers and content actually generate the
real interest required for letter writing. I feel you will end up driving
readers away”.
Also:
“…….you are in effect penalising
letter writers by constraining access to the letters page. Treating them like
naughty school children. If you really loved your readers you would expand the
letters space to a full page and more! It’s free content, remember. Try making
letters a circulation booster.”
And:
“Amp up the content, as in at least
50% more pages, and the readership will grow, ads will follow”.
There has
been no reply yet to my second feedback item. I will update things if there is
a reply. I have sent feedback occasionally to The Dominion Post – why I am not
sure but it was always worth a try. An old workmate of years ago had a
favourite tag line when dealing with difficult upper management. It was: “Keep
on with it, like water on a stone it will have an affect eventually”.
What should
letter writers do? Wait for a new editor? Live with the hope of additional
publishing space? Complain to the Stuff Editorial Board – assuming there is
one? Send feedback to the editor? She said she loved all the readers and
welcomed emails – therefore take up the invitation and bombard the editor’s
mailbox.
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