So one of my editors has, to my mind, gone mad and is insisting that newspapers are legally REQUIRED to print all letters to the editor submitted.
I contend that’s silly but have no cites. Anyone got any cites? I quoted the policies of the Washington Post, which I mostly know, but she’s insisting the rules are different for Ohio.
What’s the verdict? Crazed or cool?
Somebody else will have to weigh in with a legal opinion, but this is crazy. Any large city newspaper would have to devote their entire issue to nothing else but letters were this a requirement.
Including the defamatory ones?
Sounds absurd to me.
Newspapers and magazines never publish more than a tenth (if that) of the letters to the editors that they receive. Your editor is indeed cracked.
Total nutjob.
You might want to review your hiring practices.
Crazed. I didn’t go to j-school in Ohio, but I’m sure I would have heard it somehow. Every newspaper I’ve ever heard offers guidelines for its letters, the implication being ‘if you don’t meet them, we won’t print your letter.’ Those wouldn’t make sense if they had no choice in the matter.
Crazed. What if you didn’t have enough pages?
Unless things are very very different for Ohio.
Insane.
By the way, I have the same number of cites for this as I do for my denial that all giraffes in Chicago must be named Fred.
Since Ms. Editor made the claim, tell her she should be able to point to some authority to back her up. She’s a journalist, after all. You shouldn’t be the one having to prove a negative.
No. That’s why papers can be held responsible for defamation in letters to the editor (because they have the option to decline them).
Did a nationally known magazine for 10 years: Nope, no journalistic requirement to publish every letter to the Editor.(yep, that might be Crazymaking) You just sort out the best/most pertinent ones.
To be generous, maybe she’s whupped up on including all in the scope of response, with a daily newspaper, not a bad impulse, really, if she’s wanting to include all points of view. But, the art of editing is to discern the worthwhile from the sheer crap of chaff, in the long line of addressing many points.
Is there a space limitation on the letters page? That dictates the editing.
Wouldn’t such a state law requiring newspapers to print these letters be overturned by First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press?
*Id. *
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Didn’t find any state laws on point, but then, I didn’t look that hard because I doubt they exist.
I say, bring it on! I can’t wait to see how many of the longwinded rambly guys start sending in a letter every single day.
My paper has a one-letter-a-month policy for each writer, other restrictions, and doesn’t publish everything I send them even when I stick to one a month.
Try this: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . .” (Technically applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment). It’s an oldie but a goodie.
You might also refer to Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Torinello, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), in which the Supreme Court invalidated a Florida “right of reply” law permitting political candidates equal space in a newspaper to answer criticism.
I can show this doesn’t work in the UK.
I’ve written 3 letters to the Guardian, and they only published one. (They acknowledged the other two.)
This sort of weird claim nakes me nervous about having to provide cites. :eek:
I am scared that anyone in publishing could believe such a thing. Could you check she’s not joking, or that you didn’t misunderstand?
No, I think she’s just being a crazy-lady. She WANTS to run them all and I’m preventing it. She’s grasping as straws to try to control the debate. But I figured I might have missed something so I figured I’d toss it out here just in case.
Print out the Miami Herald case and give it to her. People who “know” some obscure law that supports their unreasonable position rarely know what to do with and actual Supreme Court case.
Although that case does not technically deal with a letter to the editor, but rather with a political candidate seeking space to respond to an editorial, the concept and the reasoning are the same. I’m sure that there is a lower court case out there where somebody has sued to get their letter to the editor published and been shot down. Let me know if you want me to search for such a thing.
The prestigious newspapers (such as the New York Times) probably get more than a hundred letters for every letter they print. On the other hand, the average suburban newpaper probably does publish most of the letters it gets, though even they will select out some stuff.
But if a newspaper had to print everything it received, a malicious perrson could easily bankrupt most newspapers.