To the woman who was angry about letters to the editor...

[tashabot]

Fuck off. Seriously, don't you have better things to do with your life than chew up 30 minutes of my time (that's $5 you owe the newspaper I work for, incidentally) arguing with me over my job?

I'm the Letter formatter. I am the one who formats the letters, types them in when they come in hardcopy, and confirms them. What does that mean? That means I have to call Every. Single. Person. Who. Writes. A. Letter and make sure they're not using a fake name and they actually wrote the letter.

You know, there may be some vast media cover-up going on in the country. Honestly, I have better shit to worry about than tossing out letters to the editor about the mayor, whom I hate. I, and apparently most of the town, don't give a shit that he got arrested for drunk driving for being .01 over the legal limit (the equivalent of having something like a half a beer too much...easy mistake to make, IMO) I'm honest to God telling you the truth that I got a total of about 10 letters on the subject, and half off them I was unable to verify and therefore could not publish. If you choose not to believe me, fine, but do not, under any circumstances, insult me by assuming that I am lying to you, or that I am taking part in the vaaaaast cover-up of the LOCAL NEWSPAPER, or that just because I'm a young'n I'm fucking retarded. No, fuck you.

And I hope you feel so good about yourself, lady, because not only was I extremely polite to you ("Ma'am, if this is going to degrade to you insulting my intelligence, I certainly have better things to do with the time the Appeal is paying me for than talk to you about how to do the job I have been doing competently for well over a year. Have a nice day!" *click*) but because of the way you treated me, my boss, the editor, has blacklisted you from ever writing a Letter to the Editor, posting a message on our Web site, or basically having anything to do with the involvement of our paper - because honestly, lady, if you're going to fight sugar with fire, at least don't sound like a raving lunatic while you do it. And don't you dare pull that "The customer is always right" bullshit with me, because it is, indeed, bullshit. We're a newspaper, not Del Taco.

Really, how stupid are you? You're lucky you dealt with someone who has something resembling sanity; if I were just a little more homicidal you'd be dead, because you stupidly told me that you send in your physical address with every Letter to the Editor that you write. Nice. Now I know your full name, address and phone number. You're lucky I have something resembling morals, too, because if I were any less scrupulous, all I'd need to do is some very easy lookup and subterfuge, and I could steal your entire retirement pension a 'la identity theft. You're lucky, ma'am, that you got me and not some other people in the newsroom who would have no problem fucking your life up.

That said, I'm going to reiterate: Why the fuck do you bother with this shit? It's a small-town, three-section local newspaper, for fucks sake! Do you really have that little of a life that you have to harass an underpaid lowly newsroom clerk for thirty minutes?

If so, then I pity you. No wonder your husband left you, you old harpy (and really, I could have done without the ten-minute diatribe on how all men are evil because your husband left you 20 years ago, but you're a good Catholic so you refuse to sign the divorce papers, but he went under you because it's Nevada, herald of all sin!). Please, just do the world a favor and either stop talking, or meet your maker.

I can't wait to write your obituary. (God, I wish I'd said that.)

~Tasha

[Really Not All That Bright]

Well, I was going to commiserate, but you didn't publish my letter either.

[DanBlather]

Since you're here, some questions:

Do you fix spelling errors and punctuation? Do you need to get permission to do so?

Same with shortening, do you pass the edited version past the writer?

When you select letters, are you ever tempted to choose ones that make the opponents to your own position look stupid?

[Hal Briston]

I can relate on two levels:

1) Going back many years to when I worked for the local weekly paper. We originally had a policy of printing every Letter to the Editor (what can I say...it was a small paper).

Eventually, the local nutcases caught on and started peppering us with three of four letters per week on the same topic. Then, when they didn't all get printed, the phone calls started.

Sorry, dinkus. No, actually, you're not going to sue us because we didn't print every single letter you sent in promoting militant Seventh Day Aventism or how we can't trust them damn dirty Japs after Pearl Harbor or whatever your particular wackjobism is.

2) (Reader's Digest version, since I'm now late signing out from work) -- The customer who called me yesterday, spent 15 minutes bitching at me, and then gave me her credit card number to pay her bill. Damn lucky I let your bitching roll off my back, lady, or you'd be paying for quite a large number of 15-year-olds porn right about now.

[Slithy Tove]

tash, I used to live in your town, and quite a few others between Hawaii and Georgia. For some reason, by comparison with the other cities, the letters to the editor in the Carson City-Reno area are the craziest, most enjoyable ones I've ever read! I remember one right-wing screed where, out of nowhere, the writer summed up his case with the 3-word sentence "Clinton is Serb." as if that made everything so obvious.

[Mister Rik]

My local newspaper has a "one letter per month" policy. I think it was instituted because of two particular letter writers: a lesbian who was using the letters column as her personal soapbox to rant about discrimination against gays (whether or not it was a topic currently being covered by the paper) and an elderly man who was writing one letter after another about bicycles on the sidewalks and how he got knocked over by a kid on a bicycle (it was never clear to me if he was being knocked down repeatedly, or if he was carrying on for more than two years about the same incident).

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by tashabot

herald of all sin

No, no. Her husband's name was spelled Harold. Harold of All Sin.

[Thudlow Boink]

To the OP: I'm still a little confused. Was this woman complaining about letters you did publish, or letters you didn't? And if the latter, how did she know (or think she did) that you had received them?

[vetbridge]

Originally Posted by tashabot

not only was I extremely polite to you ("Ma'am, if this is going

hehehe. I recently dealt with an angry, ranting consumer. I repeatedly called her "Ma'am" because otherwise I would have called her "Fuckwit". She eventually said, "Stop calling me "Ma'am", I'm younger than you".

I said, "Don't flatter yourself, honey".

Things deteriorated at that point.

[FriarTed]

Originally Posted by Hal Briston

Damn lucky I let your bitching roll off my back, lady, or you'd be paying for quite a large number of 15-year-olds porn right about now.

Do you mean porn with 15yo's or porn for 15 yo's?

or 15 yo porn?

[corkboard]

Originally Posted by vetbridge

hehehe. I recently dealt with an angry, ranting consumer. I repeatedly called her "Ma'am" because otherwise I would have called her "Fuckwit". She eventually said, "Stop calling me "Ma'am", I'm younger than you".

I said, "Don't flatter yourself, honey".

Things deteriorated at that point.

I should think so. It's "Don't flatter yourself, sugartits."

[Marley23]

I feel for you, tashabot. I edited a local newspaper for about six months and I know what you must be reading. The way people react to things in the local paper - not just letters - can be deeply bizarre.

DanBlather: papers don't need permission to fix anything in a letter. Newspapers always reserve the right to edit for length and for clarity, since the letters appear in their pages. They usually run ads that say so.

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by FriarTed

Do you mean porn with 15yo's or porn for 15 yo's?

or 15 yo porn?

I think you got it right with the last one. 1992 was an exceptional year in the pornyards. Excellent vintage (porntage?).

[vetbridge]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

I think you got it right with the last one. 1992 was an exceptional year in the pornyards. Excellent vintage (porntage?).

ah yes, 1992 presented us with a veritable pornucopia of fun!

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by DanBlather

Do you fix spelling errors and punctuation? Do you need to get permission to do so?

I run spell check. That's about it. We generally don't bother editing them. Our rule of thumb is "If you want to make yourself look like an idiot in a public forum, we are willing to let you." We can and do, however, reserve the right to edit Letters as they become the property of our newspaper upon submission.

Originally Posted by DanBlather

Same with shortening, do you pass the edited version past the writer?

As I said, we generally, unless it's a REALLY good letter, don't edit them except by running spell check. If it's too long, we just don't run it.

Originally Posted by DanBlather

When you select letters, are you ever tempted to choose ones that make the opponents to your own position look stupid?

Not really. For the most part I don't even pay attention to the content of Letters because if I did it'd probably shoot my blood pressure through the roof. Haha.

Hal Briston - Yeah, we have an approximate once a month policy here, like Phase42 mentioned, because of some crazy nutjobs who write in once a week. I'm under instructions to take the first letter they write and either hold the other ones or toss everything in their name if they have too many. Occasionally, when we have writers who are eloquent and fair but write a lot, I will call them and inform them of that policy so that they can hold their letters themselves.

Slithy Tove - Oh, man, don't get me started. There's this guy who constantly writes in about how we're serving our Jew Overlords. We rarely print his letters, but we post them in the break room for a chuckle. The people here are nuts. It's great.

Thudlow Boink - Sorry, I should have clarified. Our mayor was arrested about a month ago for drunk driving. He was only slightly above the legal alcohol limit, and was only doing 5 over when he was pulled over for speeding. His court date was this last Thursday and he rode a bicycle in because his license was taken away. He accepted 100 percent responsibility and has not drank since, although I firmly believe that it's really easy to go just a little bit past the alcohol limit and still be capable of driving, depending on individual tolerance. Apparently most of my town agrees, because no one seems to care. I have not received hardly any letters on this subject, and this lady was insisting that we had and that I was just covering it up for the mayor (who, despite being on his side in this case, I loathe). Essentially, my boss has told her that unless she's willing to come and do my job for free so that she can see how the process works, she is unable to make any accusations, as she has no proof.

Wow, maybe this should have been an "Ask the Newsroom Clerk/Obit Writer" thread. Haha.

Seriously, I know this woman's name because she's a rabid Letter writer. She writes in at least once a week. I've explained the policy to her time and time again about how you do not get letters published but once a month. She doesn't believe me. I seriously can't wait to write her obituary, and I told my boss this, too. She has nothing better to do with her life than accuse a small-town newspaper of a conspiracy that doesn't exist. It's retarded.

~Tasha

[Garfield226]

Since starting to work with newspapers about five years ago, I have discovered that a great number of people know very little about the way the business works (not to imply that I know everything about how it works, only that by working in the business, you become privy to a lot of things that it quickly becomes obvious the public is not privy to).

The paper I work at now has a letter taped to the wall that begins "Hey Ass Holes!" (directed at us, the paper) and is filled with the sort of things you might expect a letter beginning with that is filled with (bad grammar and spelling and all). It was signed in a manner to make the author anonymous, but what is interesting to me is that there is a return address on the envelope it arrived in.

Takes all kinds of people...and most of them talk to, read or want to be in the newspaper, it seems like.

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by Garfield226

Since starting to work with newspapers about five years ago, I have discovered that a great number of people know very little about the way the business works (not to imply that I know everything about how it works, only that by working in the business, you become privy to a lot of things that it quickly becomes obvious the public is not privy to).

Exactly. The BIG problem I had with this woman was that she wanted an answer, but when I'd try to explain the way the system worked, she'd say "I don't care about that!" And I would say "Well, if you don't care about that, then you're not going to get an answer that you understand."

Also, she claimed to be 83 years old, and taunted me about my name ("Natasha") saying things like "What are mothers nowadays thinking?" To which I said "It's a Russian/Polish name. It's not a new name. My family is Polish." And then she started taunting me about my name! An 83 year old! Excuse me, but if I want people teasing me about my name, I'll go hang out with the first-graders again.

~Tasha

[Maus Magill]

Originally Posted by tashabot

She has nothing better to do with her life than accuse a small-town newspaper of a conspiracy that doesn't exist. It's retarded.

How do you know it doesn't exist?

That's how secret it is, man. You're smack in the middle of it, man, and you can't even see it. See? That's how big it is, man.

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by Maus Magill

How do you know it doesn't exist?

That's how secret it is, man. You're smack in the middle of it, man, and you can't even see it. See? That's how big it is, man.

Let me rephrase. She was accusing ME of a conspiracy. I did inform her that if she wanted to discuss that, she'd have to talk to the editors. I'm just a lowly newsroom clerk, way too low on the chain of command to know about any conspiracy.

~Tasha

[glee]

Originally Posted by tashabot

Seriously, I know this woman's name because she's a rabid Letter writer. She writes in at least once a week. I've explained the policy to her time and time again about how you do not get letters published but once a month. She doesn't believe me. I seriously can't wait to write her obituary, and I told my boss this, too. She has nothing better to do with her life than accuse a small-town newspaper of a conspiracy that doesn't exist. It's retarded.

~Tasha

Perhaps you could write her several letters a day, then complain if she doesn't answer all of them promptly. Plus claim you've written many others, and she hasn't answered those either...

No, that's a bad idea!

[tashabot]

Glee - best idea I've heard all day. If I had the money for postage stamps I'd do it, too.

~Tasha

[glee]

Originally Posted by tashabot

Glee - best idea I've heard all day. If I had the money for postage stamps I'd do it, too.

~Tasha

My goodness, you're such a sweet, naive person.

Obviously you don't put stamps on the envelopes. (Here in the UK, the person getting the letter has to pay double postage. )

Don't forget to mispell her name (after she criticised yours!). Spell it differently every time.

[el_nombre]

Years ago a friend and I pranked the Nevada Appeal by writing letters on god knows what topic (probably religion), taking the most extreme opposite sides of opinion. Our letters were sent about a week apart. My friend used the name Mary Kate Olson in his letter and I of course was Ashley Olsen. Those names may raise red flags now-a-days but around 97-98 they weren't as obvious.

Anyways, they were both published and were both sent through e-mail. Nobody contacted us, nothing.

I remember the letters sounding like something only crazy people would write and you would'nt believe the glee we felt when we saw them in the paper but I have a feeling that nobody in town realized that they had been punk'd by the Olsen twins, it must've sounded like the everyday letters.

On a side note, I do like Carson and am thinking of moving back in the fall.

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by el_nombre

Years ago a friend and I pranked the Nevada Appeal by writing letters on god knows what topic (probably religion), taking the most extreme opposite sides of opinion. Our letters were sent about a week apart. My friend used the name Mary Kate Olson in his letter and I of course was Ashley Olsen. Those names may raise red flags now-a-days but around 97-98 they weren't as obvious.

Anyways, they were both published and were both sent through e-mail. Nobody contacted us, nothing.

Yeah, the lady I replaced, who was here for 13 years (I started just over a year ago) was useless in that respect. She just approved everything and claimed she'd called and confirmed it. She also spent work time doing the crossword puzzle.

I've taken on twice as many duties as she had in my stay here, plus I actually call and confirm Letters, and I get it all done enough that I actually wind up surfing the Dope out of boredom. But yeah, she was useless. I had such a mess to clean up when I took over.

Aside, if you're smart enough to come up with an awesome prank, you really do need to move back to Carson. The Sacramento gangbangers are overrunning us and we need more intelligent people.

~Tasha

[OtakuLoki]

Tasha, sorry to hear you got a grouchy crank. I wrote one Op Ed piece for our local paper. My experience with the woman handling the letters page was excellent. I just don't understand how alledgedly intelligent persons fail to realize that working with the minion that has to deal with the public in a polite manner is going have better results than ranting and raving - in a large part because of reaction against the jerks.

[LucyInDisguise]

Tasha, I am so happy to hear that the other side of this state has nearly as many (not quite as many, mind you ...) batshit crazy people as this side.

I do wish you'd move over here to help out the Elko Daily Free Press, though.

You see, I can't seem to get any of my letters published.

Some kind of conspiracy, I suspect.

Must be a small town newspaper thingy.

But, hey, with a fellow Doper making the decisions? That's someone I could really abuse ...



Uhhhh, I meant respect!



Lucy

[stuyguy]

Slight hijack here. Five years ago a friend of mine, a former editor for the New York Times, sent me an email which I hope to have made into a plaque some day. It follows.

Item from The New-London Gazette "Containing the freshest Advices, both Foreign and Domestick." Friday, May 14, 1773, in which OBSERVER [the editor] invites readers to submit essays "which are worthy of public notice":

"Any person fond of literature and desirous of seeing himself in print may now have an opportunity: if he cannot write with elegance and accuracy, the pieces will be revised by those who can."

[Projammer]

Have you thought about writing a letter to the editor about this?

[CanvasShoes]

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

To the OP: I'm still a little confused. Was this woman complaining about letters you did publish, or letters you didn't? And if the latter, how did she know (or think she did) that you had received them?

Me too! What was her rant against you about exactly?

[tashabot]

I thought this thread had gone the way of the Dodo.

Originally Posted by CanvasShoes

Me too! What was her rant against you about exactly?

I explained this earlier. She fervently believed that we were covering something up when in reality, people just didn't give a shit.

stuyguy - Brilliance! I'm going to print that out and stick it on my monitor.

LucyInDisguise - There may very well be something going down with the Elko paper. We avoid contact with them, for a reason. And honestly, you couldn't pay me to live in Elko. I was forced to live there with my uncle for a month during the summer and it blew. For someone who likes outdoorsy stuff, Elko is tops. For someone who prefers to stay inside and read, or to sit under a tree and write, not so much.

At least it's not Wells, though....

~Tasha

[Sublight]

Let us know if you get any letters from this woman.

But please make sure you don't misspell the headline.

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by Sublight

Let us know if you get any letters from this woman.

But please make sure you don't misspell the headline.

Oh...my...God.

Soooo glad I don't live in Arkansas.....soooo glad....



~Tasha

[nashiitashii]

Originally Posted by Sublight

Let us know if you get any letters from this woman.

But please make sure you don't misspell the headline.

Bwahahaha! I don't know whether to laugh at the lady for being stupid about how DST works or be sad that she doesn't understand time and science enough to comprehend that DST has nothing to do with what she's thinking it does.

[tashabot]

Sublight - I printed that out and passed it around the office. My boss really wishes the lady would write in to us.

~Tasha

[mamboman]

You should start an "Ask the Letters to The Editor Guy" thread. I bet there are dozens of interesting questions that will come up.

[tashabot]

I have thread-killer juju. I'm surprised this thread went on this long, haha.

The only thread I ever started that went for more than a few conversations was, well, this one, and the "Things that just sound perverted" thread. I am just that uninteresting.

I do think that some interesting stuff would come up, though.

~Tasha

[Saltire]

I just have to say that Herald of All Sin would be an excellent name for a Las Vegas alternative weekly paper. It would also be a decent Dopername.

[levdrakon]

I wrote a letter to a magazine one time and they published it even though I used a fake name.

Ha ha!

[vetbridge]

So, are you Jack Hoff, Dick Hurtz, or Mike Hunt?

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by Saltire

I just have to say that Herald of All Sin would be an excellent name for a Las Vegas alternative weekly paper. It would also be a decent Dopername.

If I lived in Vegas I'd totally start that paper. However, I live about 8 hours away, soooo.

~Tasha

[NDP]

Originally Posted by tashabot

I have thread-killer juju. I'm surprised this thread went on this long, haha.

The only thread I ever started that went for more than a few conversations was, well, this one, and the "Things that just sound perverted" thread. I am just that uninteresting.

I do think that some interesting stuff would come up, though.

~Tasha

Don't take it so hard. BTW, do you ever get letters that say, "I dare you to print this letter!" or something similar?

I don't think your situation is unique to Carson City. I live in a much bigger city and the paper here also seems to print an inordinate number of letters from (usually right-wing) cranks with too much time on their hands. Read the letters to the editor section of the Spokane Spokesman-Review for a month and I can guarantee you'll come across on fairly regular basis:

1. Anti-gun control letters complaining about how the eeevil liberals in the media and the "guvmen't" are conspiring to take away our guns as a part of their plan for a global totalitarian state.
2. Letters that harp on how Bill Clinton is responsible for this country's ills and warning us that Hillary (with the aid of the liberal media) will do more of the same.
3. A letter calling the very Republican Spokesman-Review or the "Socialist Review."
4. Scores of anti-abortion letters.
5. Apropos of nothing letters from creationists arguing that evolution is responsible for the world's ills followed by a series of letters defending evolution and often advocating atheism which are in turn followed by fundie rebuttals and then more pro-evolution/atheist counter-arguments, etc. (This may not seem so bad but I've seen this argument cycle so many times that it's long become tiresome.)
6. The typical "liberals (usually people from Seattle, San Francisco, LA, New York, Boston, or DC) hate America, want to corrupt our youth, and are deliberately undermining the war on terror because they want the Islamofacists to win" letter.

Granted, well-written and intelligently argued letters are also printed but they seem to be fighting the aforementioned crank-blasts for attention. And just think what the letters that weren't good enough to print are like [shudder].

Originally Posted by levdrakon

I wrote a letter to a magazine one time and they published it even though I used a fake name.

Ha ha!

Originally Posted by vetbridge

So, are you Jack Hoff, Dick Hurtz, or Mike Hunt?

What about Phil Lashio, Amanda Huggenkiss, or Haywood Jablowmee?

[Sofaspud]

Originally Posted by NDP

Don't take it so hard. BTW, do you ever get letters that say, "I dare you to print this letter!" or something similar?

I don't think your situation is unique to Carson City. I live in a much bigger city and the paper here also seems to print an inordinate number of letters from (usually right-wing) cranks with too much time on their hands. Read the letters to the editor section of the Spokane Spokesman-Review for a month and I can guarantee you'll come across on fairly regular basis:

*blinkblink* Well, howdy, neighbor!

Granted, well-written and intelligently argued letters are also printed but they seem to be fighting the aforementioned crank-blasts for attention. And just think what the letters that weren't good enough to print are like [shudder].

Back in high school, I was on the paper. As part of a Career Day thing (if I remember correctly), we went to the Spokesman-Review building for a behind-the-scenes tour. I, being my sneaky, underhanded self, promptly split myself off from the rest and went to visit the Letters to the Editor folks.

Let me tell you, man... you ain't seen NOTHING like what they DON'T print. Spokane may not have a monopoly on nutjobs, but we're breeding 'em fast up here. *sigh*

[LucyInDisguise]

Originally Posted by tashabot

<snip>At least it's not Wells, though.... <snip>

You know, don'tcha, that there is a very good reason that Wells rhymes with Hells ...

Lucy

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by NDP

BTW, do you ever get letters that say, "I dare you to print this letter!" or something similar?

Yes. We usually do, too, misspellings and all so that people know how stupid they are.

We actually don't get too many anti-abortion letters. We get too many anti-contraception letters, though, because people seem to have a problem differentiating between the two. We also get a lot of those Clinton conspiracy letters. But everything else is just kinda a toss-up. We do get a lot of people bitching about young'ns, but you expect that from a high retirement area like this.

Sofaspud - We print almost everything we get, unless it violates the once a month policy or is downright offensive (as in, the guy who writes in about Our Jew Overlords or people who say that all Wiccans are rotting in hell....regardless of whether or not we agree with them, that's really just crossing the line). Also, it has to connect with this area, so people writing in from Florida about some national problem don't get printed, but locals do. If someone from Florida writes in about something going on in Carson (as in, they have a relative there), that's a different story.

~Tasha

[Sofaspud]

Originally Posted by tashabot

Sofaspud - We print almost everything we get, unless it violates the once a month policy or is downright offensive (as in, the guy who writes in about Our Jew Overlords or people who say that all Wiccans are rotting in hell....regardless of whether or not we agree with them, that's really just crossing the line). Also, it has to connect with this area, so people writing in from Florida about some national problem don't get printed, but locals do. If someone from Florida writes in about something going on in Carson (as in, they have a relative there), that's a different story.

~Tasha

I think that's the same policy the Review up here follows; it's been a while since high school. But the letters section is still only one or two pages, with a huge freakin' editorial cartoon taking up 1/3 the real estate (what happened to decent editorial cartoonists, by the way?), so there's still a lot that goes unpublished even if it otherwise qualifies (or so I assume, because the amount of letters they get could fill the whole paper if they published them ALL, heh).

Anyway, I was referring mostly to the REALLY crazy stuff -- conspiracy theories, expletive-laden diatribes against the current mayor, that sort of thing. Funny reads, most of them. But I'd hate the 'dealing with the psychos' part of your job, even if I enjoyed reading their, um, theories.

[kidchameleon]

Originally Posted by tashabot

Also, it has to connect with this area, so people writing in from Florida about some national problem don't get printed, but locals do. If someone from Florida writes in about something going on in Carson (as in, they have a relative there), that's a different story.

Do these people just pick random papers to write in? I thought a lot of Floridians were regular readers of the Trib for quite some time.

[tashabot]

Originally Posted by kidchameleon

Do these people just pick random papers to write in? I thought a lot of Floridians were regular readers of the Trib for quite some time.

We get people from all over the globe writing in because our articles, often times, get put on specific newswires; for instance, if one of our stringers writes a column about legalizing marijuana, it'll get put on the Marijuana News Wire (I think that's what it's called). A lot of activists subscribe to this sort of thing so we'll get letters from around the country about whatever. We generally don't publish out of state letters unless they're really good and directly pertain to the area.

Sofaspud - We generally do run most letters we get, assuming I am able to get them into the system. People who hand-write letters in handwriting I cannot read will not get published, for instance. Most people who e-mail letters do get published. There are various reasons some don't get published but generally if it's legible and we can confirm it, it goes in the paper.

~Tasha

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by tashabot

Yes. We usually do, too, misspellings and all so that people know how stupid they are.

~Tasha

I have a friend who is a reporter for a small paper in NJ, and they had a firestorm when they ran a letter from one of the local loons without editing. They got accused of making this fool look bad by running his letter as is.

Do you have headlines on your letters? Do you have locally contributed OpEd pieces? If so, who writes them? I ask because a bunch of years ago, during a school funding crisis, I wrote an OpEd piece advocating balancing the budget by laying off students. I called it "A Modest Proposal for Our Schools" but the headline writer, being an illiterate, changed it into something innocuous. Half the people thought I was serious.

[jesuslynch]

Originally Posted by Sublight

Let us know if you get any letters from this woman.

But please make sure you don't misspell the headline.

Just a quick follow-up.

[D_Odds]

Originally Posted by jesuslynch

Just a quick follow-up.

Also Snopes