Insight Into Our Letters To The Editor Policy

Through our membership in the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, we are fortunate to have a group of fellow editors who face many of the same challenges we do. In discussions of our shared experiences, including questions about how we develop policies to fairly handle editorial page decisions, we build and refine the principles guiding our reporting, journalistic ethics, and editorial page integrity.

Recently, we discussed what makes a letter to the editor acceptable in our publications. It was thoughtful, diverse, and challenging.

Some editors will print just about anything, despite how outrageous, expecting readers to sort fact from fiction, truth from lie, and reality from fantasy. They were a small minority. We disagree with their approach. People too often accept what they read or see as truth, especially if it aligns with their prejudices, never seeking to verify its truth.

Others say it is up to the newspaper to fact-check letters, inform letter writers of errors, and ask them to rewrite or delete those comments. Some factual errors are easy to correct, such as the date the Bill of Rights became law – Dec. 15, 1791. 

Others are character assessments or judgments of policy – a politician is a crook who is stealing from the public or one who is only earning his or her deserved benefits. Cuts to Medicare are hurting people in need; others say they are weeding out freeloaders and scammers. In both cases, both statements can be true.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence,” Founding Father and America’s second President John Adams said. Overcoming inclinations and passions with factual evidence was challenging then and is far more difficult in our internet, artificial intelligence (AI) era. 

We can ask writers to cite their sources for information we find questionable and then check the source’s credibility. This can be a time-consuming but necessary step. Websites such as PolitiFact, FactCheck, Snopes, and AP Fact Check allow for a quick check on the truth or falseness of information.

The editor’s challenge is not taking sides in choosing what to print and what not to print. Misinformation should be corrected without favor, whether from the left, right, or center.

“As editors and publishers, I think we should take pride in publishing opinions that are contrary to our own – as long as they are responsible and factually correct,” one editor wrote. 

If there is a false statement in the letter, we should let it go, avoiding censorship, and add an editor’s note at the end pointing out the falsehood. “If a reader states something incorrect, an editorial note is preferable (in my opinion) to deleting the incorrect statement,” he said.

Not everyone agrees with giving the editor the last word by attaching an editor’s note. It can be considered an unfair advantage. It also accepts the position of printing falsehoods, a practice which seats false information in people’s minds.

Today, writers can too easily find information on the internet that supports their point of view, insert it in a letter, and claim it to be fact. As we all know, the internet is full of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and outright lies.

“While we are not in the business of censorship, we also should not be in the business of spreading propaganda,” one Society editor wrote. “As we have seen with social media and online commenting, the internet is extremely good at radicalizing people, getting them to believe false information and inspiring them to turn on their neighbors,” he writes. 

We’ve seen a flood of misinformation on the internet generated by Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and other nations seeking to undermine our belief in our government and our leaders. AI is causing an explosion of this misinformation in video and images that are so real they are hard not to accept as reality.

“The local newspaper should be a counterbalance to this trend; we should be in the business of presenting a realistic picture of issues, not internet-fueled propaganda,” another colleague told us.

Letters to the editor give our readers a chance to say how they feel about the challenges our communities face, how they are being dealt with, and how our elected officials are performing. We encourage our readers to write. The best editorial page is one on which our readers provide a wide variety of views.

But we want letters that provide passionate points of view.

“Letters to the editor that aren’t ‘offensive’ to anybody usually are meaningless to everybody,” a Society editor wrote. “If editors withhold letters because the opinion might offend someone, then they’d be better off publishing nothing but recipes, bad poetry, and thank-you notes. Even then you can’t guarantee someone won’t be offended by a broccoli and cheese casserole recipe,” an editor wrote.

Only being exposed to those ideas with which we agree stunts our growth as citizens. Reading what others think gives us new insights, helping expand our outlook. Those new ideas might make us more tolerant, more willing to listen, and more likely to compromise.

To apply our standards fairly, we must establish them with our readers through our letters to the editor policy. We publish these rules a couple of times a year. These standards apply to all writers and remove political bias from the process.

Letters can offer a “safety valve” for people in the community who don’t feel heard to have their opinion published. They can reflect the political temperature of the community – are we civil with one another or is discontent boiling beneath the surface? 

Letters give us insight into the community we live in, its problems, and solutions to those problems. 

Letters give our community leaders direction on housing, daycare, and other needs. They motivate citizens to seek changes that make our communities healthier, more welcoming, and economically stronger.