BREVITY is very
important.
You can think
you
sound
brilliant by giving "Pearse's Oration at
the
Grave..." but
they will not publish it. Most
newspaper
columnits would
never get a letter to editor published
because they are
egotists and love to write on and on.
Better
that YOU cut
out the "fluff" then let them
do it or,
not
publish your
letter! And not understanding the Irish
situation, in
ignorance, they may cut out your
most
important point.
.
TIMING is essential.
Both
the
Irish Echo and
the Irish
Voice print their papers on Tuesday and
Wednesday. So you
don't want your lettter to arrive on a
Monday, it will miss
this edition and may get pushed out for
next
week's edition
because it's no longer releavant or
something
"better" gets
sent.
So you want to fax them early on Friday
morning first
thing. If you want a letter to appear
in a
Sunday paper
(for maximum exposure) better get it in
their
office by
Thursday, so it gives them time to
verify it.
PYSCHOLOGY use a lot!
Think
like "the
enemy". The Irish
Echo is a little more straight-laced
then the
Irish Voice.
The Echo appeals to the older group,
while
the Voice
appeals to a younger group. The voice
enjoys a "dispute"
between letter writers and or letter
writers
"taking on"
their journalists, they feel it it
"spices"
up their
editorial pages. The voice likes to
print
opposing views,
unionist, republican, etc A letter to
the NY
Times has to
be more formal than to your "local" and
even
much briefer.
Don't go against the grain, use it to
your
advantage!
QUOTE something from their
recent
editorial
or article.
Writers are the ultimate egotists, next
to
politicians.
Don't kiss their behinds, but again, use
this
to your
advantage.
HUMOUR even sarcasm in the most serious situation will often mean the differance between getting your letter published and, after that, catching the eye of the reader. The paper (its copy editors) usually decides what to title your letter, if you've used something really funny they will draw on that and if its a good one, your letter will "stick out".
STICK TO THE SUBJECT AT
HAND.
You can't
solve the entire
situation in occupied Ireland in your
letter.
It's
tempting, but confine yourself to what
you
are attacking or
promoting.
DOUBLE CHECK your facts and
dates.
If not
sure, omit
them!
This is 10,000 times more
important than checking
spelling, etc.
The papers can afford to make errors and
other letter writers that oppose you,
but you
cannot afford to have even one tiny fact
wrong.
But don't waste too much time finding
out or
being too
much of a
perfectionist, you'll never get it done
or
sent.
If you think something should be stated,
but
can't back it
up, better to omit it!
EDIT....EDIT...EDIT...EDIT!.
There it is,
Pearse's
"Oration at the Grave of
O'Donovan-Rossa" or
the next
Gettysburgh Address. You are one
brilliant sob and, guess
what?? It's too darn long and won't see
the
light of day!
Again, writing to the editor is not the
same
as writing a
column. How can you say the
exact
same thing
but briefer?
Where can you use shorter,
differant, words
to get your
point across? Of course, if you are
writing
to the NY
Times, you want to use more latin and
french-origin words,
but you still have to shorten it. If
stuck,
use a
thesaurus. (you should use one,
anyways, to
"spice" up
your writing)
IF you are too shy or want to protect
you
anonymity,
get
someone else to write it or sign it for
you. Or, you
can write a very
long letter "not for publication" and
mail it to the managing, city or news
editors and still
make a
differance. Sometimes, a greater
differance than a letter to the editor
will! Or you can email a very short one
line email, like
please give a more balanced view on
Ireland
or tell the SF
story as well as the British.
MAKE sure you include some kind of street address and phone number where you can be reached, especially on your emails, to an editor,especially if you want to get it published. You can specify do not print my address and phone number, etc. If you don't have a phone, use a work number or a voice mail. You can sometimes leave a message on voice mail or your answering machine, saying "(name of paper), if you call this is to confirm the letter I wrote you Feb 2, 1999" and give your name.
FAX IT! - do not mail it.
This
will insure
that your
timing (above) happens as planned.
Especially if
it's your first
letter to that publication you will also
want
to send a
header sheet to the fax (or you could
put it
as a "PS" at
the bottom of the letter instead)
stating
that you will
mail them the original (and do it too)
so
that they can
verify your signature. Tell them where
you
can be reached
at differant times of the day and make
sure
you are there
when you say you will be. Usuallly
national
or
international papers will not waste the
long
distance to
verify, (but some of the major ones
will) but
your local paper will not publish
the most
brilliant letter until they contact you.
I
know, faxing
might cost you dollar or two or a pound,
but
yoiu felt
strong enough to write, so why not
invest
some money, a
little, very little, to make the
differance
if it gets
published or doesn't?
EMAIL vs Fax vs "Snail
Mail.
What
do I do? Which
is "best"? Well email has two
disadvantages,
one they
can't verify your signature because, you
cannot physically
sign it and th other as Christy, a
former
city editor, points out is
that it can
get deleted by accident and once it's
gone,
it's gone, they
can't recover it and you won't know it
happened! One writer, Nick
Kelley mentioned that the older news
editors
might pay more
attention to conventional mail but the
younger reporters
and staffers might pay more attention to
email. The best
road, in my pinion is if you are the
only writer or the
"principal" writer of a group
writing effort and you
want your letter to get published
because you
are brilliant
and have something to really say is do
this:
DO BOTH! Email them
right now, don't put it off. Mention at
the
bottom of your email that you will also
send
them and hard copy and fax it to them or
snail mail it to them.
IF IT DOESN'T get published it does not mean you haven't made a differance or made an impact. Don't despair, your letter may have been too long, etc, but you may notice that paper no longers uses the term, "political arm of the IRA", ect, sbecause the editorial staff took your letter seriously, but couldn't find a way to publish your letter without chopping it into meaningless bits and pieces.
SOMETHING Else to consider if it hasn't been published yet or if haven't gotten a confirmation call in a few days, you can also edit and shorten your letter and resubmit it. Don't panic, though, sometimes they are waiting for a few more letters often with an opposing view point on the same topic, so they might hold yours a few days and in some cases, they have even held letters for a few weeks.
POINT-COUNTER
POINT-REBUTTALS
Well,
they published your
brilliant letter, every thing
is fine. A little later, out of a clear
blue
sky, comes a
letter from someone with an axe to
grind, who
tries to blow your letter "out of the
water".
Be glad or
sad? Be glad, because, guess what? It
gives
you another opportunity to get a brand
new
letter published
as a rebuttal! Which is why you
should stick to the subject in the first
letter, and do not
try to "overkill" or "oversell" in it.
Save
your
ammunition as a surprise. In fact,
sometimes
it pays to
leave something a little open as "bait"
for
someone to attack you and then you hit
back
with the really
heavy ammo.
FORM LETTERS VS ORIGINAL
Every
paper is
different. It goes
back to psychology. There
used to be two dailies in a major city,
and
if
you wrote the
identical letter to each, the one
wouldn't
print it. Word it totally differently
and,
both would
print your letter on the exact, same
thing.
If
worse comes to worse, use a form letter,
ie
copy a friend's
with his/her permission, of course,
rather than do nothing at all.
IMPORTANCE of Email Backup
Support
If you don't
have time to
write a "letter to the editor", but you
know
that others are writing
to that
publication, then do a short email, to
back
their efforts
up. Your email might make a differance
in
whether some
else's great letter gets published or
gets
tossed.
So don't hesitate, Email your opinion
in
that case. And
it can be one sentence. Keep in mind,
we,
like it or not
are living in a bloody capitalist world.
You
could write
a masterpiece
but they won't publish it unless they
think
it is
"newsworthy".
If you are the
only
person
that writes and
they think their readers won't
care, it gets
tossed So
back up letters, even short one-sentence
emails are VERY
IMPORTANT!
WARING! Email Letters to the Editor
versus Letters/Commentary
All newspapers are
differant.
The Irish
The local paper here, has a
special email
"letters to the editor", but, they
determine
the subject and
then ask for repsones and then only
publish
those emails
once a week. These are not
treated as
actual Letters to the Editor. An
Austrailian paper I
wrote
to, does publish
emails, but it they toss it immediately
if
you don't include a street address and
phone
number the will send you a letter but it
does not get past a clerk at the
computer until you supply an address and
phone number. Other
newspapers ask for emails to
their editorial
staff or their on-line edition, but
they don't publish them in the
actual newspaper
they will, however publish them in a
comments
"letters" on
the their on-line edition but not their
print
edition. I think the Belfast Irish news
does this. So be very careful that an
email version gets to the email
Letters to the Editor section
and not to an on-line commentary
section. It is always a good idea to
fax them a printed copy of your email
and sign that copy.
Your Own Personal Follow-Up
It's also a great idea to email an
Editorial Page, City, Managing or News
Edtor a personal email BY NAME, a very
short explanation
that
you would
like to see more balanced reporting on
Ireland and that you
have faxed and sent a letter that you
believe
public should see.
A SECOND LOOK
Like
it or
not, although it is not true, many,
perhaps most, readers
view, the situtation as
a struggle between Catholics and
Protestants or "feuding paddies".
Especailly when mentioning sectarian
attacks, take a second look at your
letter. Does it lend itself to
that false view. Even though know you
the background, remember most others do
not. Did you use "catholics" when you
mean "nationalists"? Are you blaming
"unionists" (which means all
unionists when you really mean only the
Unionist politicians or David Trimble or
the UUP?
And never, never just
attack the Unionist or UUP position
without putting the final blame on
Britain and Tony Blair in your
conclusion.
Ireland did not invade
Britain. Britain invaded Ireland and
planted settlers there and then stirred
up religous hatred where there was none.
Even in the GFA, Britain still claims
that the 6 counties are part of Britain
and that a "majority" want to be part of
Britain. Fine, in your conclusion, say,
let Britain fix it! (The British
government wants to HAVE the 6 counties
AND blame conflict on "the Irish or
Paddies, who cannot get along", don't
let them)
SHOULD YOU END IT WITH A CALL TO
ACTION?
Don't miss out on an
opportunity to urge other readers to
write Congress, Tony Blair or the paper
itself if the paper has been hostile to
us or negligent. It's "free add" to get
others to act or protest. Use it when
it's appropriate!
The recent events in the Northern Ireland peace process ("A failure of nerve in Ulster" July 16) surprised few Americans. Although elected with the largest plurality in Parliament this century, Prime Minister Tony Blair has shown insufficient resolve in efforts to break impasses and provide leadership in ending the conflict. One cannot fault his energy or interest, but there is too much motion and not enough movement.The Plain Dealer editorial correctly noted the Unionist position. It is essentially that if the IRA did not like how things were going under an elective system, it would reserve the right to take up arms.
Loyalists are familiar with this position because it reflects their history since this sectarian state was set up. They didn't like the results of the 1918 elections, so they armed and assassinated and got the British to back them up. They didn't like equality for Catholics in 1968, so again they resorted to arms and assassination. They didn't like the Hillsborough Treaty so they bombed Dublin and Managhan, killing 33. The Belfast Agreement is not to their liking,so they have again resorted to assassination by murdering 20 since the IRA ceasefire.
The Catholic-Nationalist community has paid a high price for Britain's support of minority rule and appeasement of loyalists. If the Belfast Agreement is not to be implemented then the next bill laid before the House of Comnmnons should be the one that ends Irelands's unilateral and undemocratic partition.
Britain has spent the entire century from Gladstone's Home Rule Bill to Blair's Good Friday agreement trying to avoid an Ireland united and free. Enough is enough.
MICHAEL J. CUMMINGS
Washington DC
(Cummings is chairman of the political education committee and member of the national board of the Irish-American Unity Conference
*
I know Monaghan is misspelled. I left it
that
way on purpose
,just to show you copy editors aren't
always
as smart as they think they are.
And, yes, he refers to the
"Catholic/Nationalist" community when
simply "Nationalists" would have been
better.
However, this letter is the "perfect"
letter for
a
number of reasons, besides the content.
It is BRIEF but says a lot without going
off
in too many directions.
Even though he is from "out of town", he establishes a reason to publish his letter, by citing a recent editorial. And he builds on it from there. Notice how he seems to almost take the Unionists' arguement and logic, then turns the tables, and turn this against them.
While he proves why the unionists are wrong, he places the ULTIMATE blame back on Britain, does not get trapped into blamining just the Unionists and leaveing it there and ending on that. He brings it back to Blair and Britain EACH and EVERY time"!
Some of you write terrific letters, the only problem is you can leave your American, and Canadian and French, etc, readers think it is about Unionists and "Catholics"" alone. Or it's about the GFA alone. (Remember the GFA is not the goal, never was.) Exactly what Mandelson (Mo's successor) and Tony want them to think, so they can wash their hands like Pilate. Always put it back on Tony's and parliament's doorstep the way this man did!
FREE IRELAND Enough is enough.
*
FOLLOWING ARE SOME NOTES AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE MEDIA AND A WORD FROM A FORMER EDITOR (CHRISTY)
They are not the enemy. The British government is. Britain, which styles itself as a democracy has an official secrets act even in times of peace it does not have a free press. The problem with the American media is they are lazy but they are not evil. (Read "Nation of Sheep" and "Drunk at Noon"). Editors like to think, they know it all, when they don't. Reporters get their stories from friends in government and other countries' newsmedia personnel. Reporters often make some good friendships with high ups in the British army and government and thinks he is doing the American people a great "public service" by keeping them informed about "terrorism", etc. But he doesn't "dig" in the streets, he doesn't go up the Shankill road or to Ardoyne and talk to "the man in the street"
As for the Italian and other European media they have an advantage on the Americans, because, for one thing they are more multi-lingual, but they probably get most of their material from London rather than Belfast or Dublin because the European governments accept the British Occupied six counties as part of England and think that the lawful government is in London, so they get their stories there, the WORST place.
Also, the CIA, MI5, MI6 and the old KGB plant stories, they "leak" lies to the media. You would often read about a cache of "soviet" or "red Chineese" weapons captured from some rebel group in South America, when the CIA, itself, had planted the weapons, and then "found" them. The media itself, is often an unsuspecting victim of lies. but, they should get off their bar stools and be a little more skeptical. And of course, in Britain, it is very easy to manipulate the press.
So don't attack them, but see anything they misrepresent as an OPPORTUNITY to get the republican side out. Be glad when they print some garbage like calling SF, the "political arm of the IRA" but DO something about it. Be BRIEF. Don't go in 100 directions, stick to the point at hand.
*
Some advice from a former city editor and a writer who has done a lot to bring about changes.
*
SOME ADVICE FROM CHRISTY:
As a former news editor and city editor, I think you guys are on target. The more letters these editors get the better off we are. They need to be educated. Try not to get angry with them, they just don't understand it and they're getting all their info from the likes of Shawn Pog - the AP writer who we have been after for some time now. There was a call-in campaign to AP in New York last July when his reporting on Drumcree started to look so damn one sided. Suspect that he has some unionist contacts in Belfast if not deeper, but that's not confirmed. Remember, when writing to an editor, be clear. Refer to the story you want to dispute, and keep it as short as possible. It's hard for an editor to ignore a targeted letter that's to the point and less than 100 words. And if they get 10 letters on any one topic that's probably a lot.
*
Posted by Nick Kelly : Email is regularly read by many editor's staffs, especially the young ones who know that it's the fastest way to pick up the sense of the readership. All the Boulder area newspapers seem to respond well to emails. I think faxes (or follow-up faxes) are still the best choice with many governmental offices where many of the office staff are older (less turnover in government jobs) and still not quite as email friendly.
Two can play the word game.
Anybody
can
label something or someone
"terrorist".
Let's use our own little glossary:
Email us your suggestions.
Of course, there are times to use some
of these, such as letters to the Irish
papers and a time, when using them may
get yourself written off as "too
partisan", such as in a letter to
congress. Use good judgement.
*
Note: We are not going to put all our "secrets" here. If you are serious and want to do and know more email us at:
