Are election letters slanted?
A recent letter from a reader:
The News and Record has been consistently fair in its election primary coverage of both the Democrat and the Republican parties, based on the coverage I‘ve seen.
Except for the editorial page.
Are Obama supporters the only constituents who write letters to the News and Record? “Obama’s Sold Record is There for All to See,” follows yesterday’s letter,“Critics overstate Wright’s Inflammatory Abilities.”
I find it hard to believe that McCain and Clinton backers write letters any less frequently than Barack Obama endorsers.
My reply:
Thanks for your note.
We publish nearly all of the election-related letters we receive. We also take care to ensure that they fully represent various points of view. That makes our editorial pages not only more balanced but more interesting and stimulating to our readers.
But we can’t publish letters we don’t receive.
Are you aware of any letters from friends or acquaintances that have endorsed Republicans or Hillary Clinton but have not been published? Have you written such a letter yourself and not had it published? If so, please let me know.
My guess is that we received so many more letters from Democrats during the primary campaign because of the Obama-Clinton race. That’s also probably why more Democrats than Republicans turned out to vote on May 6. The scenario should be very different in November.
As for pro-Clinton letters, I haven’t counted them individually but I know, from having screened most letters and proofed many of them, that we’ve run plenty.
Again, if you or someone you know has had trouble having an election letter published in our newspaper, please let me know. We keep careful files and records of all letters we receive and can look up a letter by the writer’s name and the date it arrived, whether it was published or not.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have additional questions or concerns. We appreciate you reading the News & Record.
Comments (8)
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No, but I know for a fact, you did not print mine, on our brave marines. I also know for a fact, you do not print anything in your paper negative to the the good ole boys in Raleigh, lte are anything else. I also know for a fact you have no trouble running letters off the Internet if they bash conservatives. I have comment on these letters many times. I am in Raleigh most of this week , I bet I find out more crap that goes on here in 4 days, than your paper will print in 4 years. But first 8 am tee times. I understand that the ploticians do come to town until Tuesday.
Posted on May 19, 2008 5:29 AM
"...Democrat and the Republican..."
How did you let yourself get bamboozled into reprinting that obvious slur without a [sic] following it? Congrats to the writer: he got what he wanted.
Posted on May 19, 2008 6:51 AM
Sue, I chose to represent the letter as written. You're right, I could have put a (sic) after the word "Democrat," but did not consider it a big deal.
I took it as a little dig, the same as some letter writers who refer to "Dubya."
But, ye, strictly speaking, from a grammatical point of view, it should be "Democratic."
Posted on May 19, 2008 9:02 AM
Doug:
As much grief as we've given the governor and state lawmakers in our editorial columns and with in many of the letters to the editor, you're kidding, right?
As for your own letter on Marines, when did you submit it? I'd be happy to look it up and tell you why it wasn't published.
Posted on May 19, 2008 9:06 AM
Aside from politics, I've noticed the N&R will print form letters, particularly from vegetarians promoting their cause. They are visible from a mile away.
Here is a recent example:
http://blog.news-record.com/opinion/letters/archives/2008/05/a_vegetarian_diet_leaves_more.shtml#comments
One of our bloggers named Roger spots them out readily, he does a simple Google search and finds the exact or nearly same letters published in other newspapers.
Here is his Google search for the above letter, notice how many other places it's been published. It's long link I hope it works. If not, go to Roger's post in the N&R letter for the link.
http://www.google.com/search?q=A+plant-based+diet+requires+only+16+percent+to+20+percent+of+the+resources+of+the+standard+American+diet.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Why can't the N&R doe the same easy search before printing form letters? Or do you guys mind plagiarism?
Posted on May 19, 2008 10:11 PM
We do conduct such searches on letters we suspect as form letters, or astroturf.
We catch a lot of them that way, some that have been published from Montana to Maine.
Unfortunately, we don't catch them all.
Posted on May 20, 2008 8:49 AM
If you get a letter on vegetarianism, it's probably a form letter. (You've printed two in the past year.) Due to some sort of protein deficiency, there are, apparently, only one or two vegetarians capable of formulating original thoughts. The rest can only mail it in.
Posted on May 20, 2008 11:18 AM
Naturally, we'd prefer that no form letters got through.
But two in the past year? Out of more than 4,000 letters recerived? That doesn't strike me as very many.
Posted on May 20, 2008 12:01 PM