Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Letters to the Editor II

I blogged yesterday about letters to the editor and rules. I received a prompt (and polite) response from Prof. Boudreaux (the politeness surprised because I was just a little snarky). I'm not convinced by his reasoning, but he didn't give me permission to quote so I'll go on to the broader issue.

The Post sports pages now carry material from blogs. I've never looked at the sports blogs, but it appears they're rapidly blurring the line between print and electronic media. In this respect, sports is well ahead of the news desk. I suggest the Post look into a similar process on the news side--certainly there has to be material worthy of being raised to the prominence of the print pages.

Such an advance still doesn't answer the bottomline question--where do you write? The odds against getting a letter published are very high, but the reward in circulation is great. It's a trade off--a 100 percent chance of publishing where almost no one reads or a .0001 percent chance of publishing where 1000000 people read (made up figures).

Of course, if the Post would merely kick rejected letters to a web site, the problem might be alleviated.

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