OPINION
Boring, pointless letters won’t improve the ‘Emerald
LiaSakktu
eilo out I hern, are you
awake7 I want to know
JL -A. win things uro the way
they an?
How i onnv ini'ii though we
h;i\ ii excellent tiails for com mu
Miration literally at our fingertips
— the keyboard on which I'm
typing, tlir newspaper you are
holding — we are not really coin
niunii ating7 Why are the letters
to the editor so vague, only spo
radically making am sort of
point ' What is it that makes every
mention of the Emerald an
excuse to yawn?
Are you bored, or are we bor
ing? It's time to fess up. lust what
is the function of this rag?
The function of a campus
newspaper should he to keep
those within our University com
munity in touch with each other
If there is a failure to communi
cate between the paper and the
community, then both the paper
and the students should be ask
ing what is wrong.
Not to say that we don't get let
ters to the editor. The only prob
lem is that for the most part. I
can't understand what anyone is
trying to say in them. Letters that
clearly stale a person's case and
then proceed to make a point are
few and lar between. The hulk of
the letters section has lately
caterer! to a bizarre discussion of
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Ayn Hand and whether or not her
brand of i apitalism is poisoning
our country (How did it start,
when will it end?)
Then there are the many vari
ations of letters that ( rv out at
how horrible the Kmt'rnhi is and
how disgruntled people are,
being neither spei if'u about the
mistake the newspaper has made
this time nor a twilit how the sto
ry could have been covered dif
ferently
Then there is the other type of
letter, always entertaining, some
times scan . like the letter from
John Wayne Johnson in Sail
Diego (win is he sending Ills let
ter to a university paper in Ore
gnn. anvw nv') that describes his
"one-man crusade to exon ise
demom/ed America” and his
conviction that it all women
stayed at home, we'd see (nil
employment, no crime and
"|esus '
Oil boy, aren't vve witnessing
democrat v in action If you think
these letters tend to be boring,
whinv .mil just plain pointless,
you should hear some of the com
ments they generate in the news
room
Not to sav that our new spaper
is such a stellar publication that
it should escape crith ism. But
criticisms that somewhere
involve a point might help us tai
lor this public ation to belter ( ater
to you Not to sa\ that those types
of letters never appear But they
don’t appear often enough
Here's a hint to letter writers
hoping to make a point and have
it heard Be concise lie specif
h And tr\ to ini lode something
that will capture the imagination
that might inspire thought for a
change When a newspaper
receives responses from calm
people who state their points in
a way that informs hoth the short
falls of the coverage and w hat the
reader wanted to read instead,
then writers may stop prodm mg
content that the reader believes
is limited, boring, sloppy or just
plain stupid Kditors and the
whole i rew that puts a puhlica
turn together can he more con
scious of the wav the readers
want their paper to Ins
I have a sneaking suspicion
that there's onlv a few jmople out
there who ever get fired up
enough to write a letter to the edi
tor 1'hey are the types who get
fired up repeatedly Ihe rest ot
the population, if they read a
newspaper a! all. |iist don't find
anything in it that would ever
make them i are enough to both
er to put their own voice in it
The communication break
down lietween a newspaper and
its readers is h\ no means Ihe
fault of the readers alone II the
I>est function of the newspaper is
to line bird cages, the produi ers
of that paper can't e\pe< t enough
excitement from readers to war
rant an interesting page of letters
every (lav
Wouldn't it he ideal if we all
started caring about and getting
involved with the process more
than we do' Starting with
reporters who think of their own
storv ideas instead of relying on
tile PR pac ks they get in the mail
Starting with editors who com
mune ate with both reporters and
the public Starting w ith you. the
informed readership who offers
the information that the pester left
out, and odors fixnltwn k that goes
deeper than "You su< k." "Kvery
one reading this vs ill go to hell."
or ''Thank you for kissing up to
us, loso the group vou vv roto the
storv about Wo i mild all learn
mom t*ff«*i:tive wavs to commu
nicatn. don't you think'
I'm hoping to hear from you
I iti Salcict-ia n o columnist
for the Mrnornkl
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