Letters to the Editor Pages

Many readers who contact the Press Council are concerned that their Letter-to-the-editor have not been published. The way in which the Letters page of a large newspaper is set-up is rarely discussed. For that reason, the Council has asked the Letters editor of The Australian, Dinoo Kelleghan, to explain how the system operates.

"On a quality newspaper the most important feature is, or ought to be, the Letters to the Editor. I suspect that very few editors really appreciate this point. They tend to see the Letters column as a rag-bag, a mass, an unpredictable and undisciplined assortment of grumbles, log-rolls, bad temper, injured vanity, nagging corrections, pomposity ('It has been drawn to my attention ...') and effusions from trouble-making bigwigs which cannot safely be omitted." - Paul Johnson, Epistles to Fleet Street, 1983.

The Letters page is where The Australian forces its hand down on the coals of a critical readership; where "circulation" loses its amorphousness and assumes names and independent minds. It is also a forum for over 300,000 to communicate with each other on any subject; many enduring friendships between readers have sprung up through the Letters page.

More than for any other section of The Australian, readers ask how content is selected for the Letters page. They demand to set the agenda, or criteria, for the page, with the editor merely as conduit. It is their own page, they say: the rest of the paper is for the journalists; they have been readers of The Australian long before the incumbent Letters editor. They say bullyingly that if we do not print their letters they will stop buying the newspaper. They take us before the Press Council to try and enforce their protests.

Spurred on by the existence of the Press Council and, perhaps, by pro-consumer monitoring programs such as Media Watch and The Investigators, readers are becoming far more assertive and demanding. The Letters editor is flailed continually by accusations of bias.

The opportunities for unwitting bias are evident.

We receive 80 to 120 letters a day, fewer if the post is interrupted by holidays and more if readers are excited about an issue. We can only fit an average of 11 letters on the page, roughly a tenth of the day's "take". Ours is an unusually large Letters page, and of the three elements on it - the editorials, the cartoon and the Letters section - the readers' contributions are the most prominent. The Australian long ago recognised that the mix of readers attracted to this paper has a high value.

Perhaps because the paper is only thirty years old, or perhaps because its genesis is linked with a sentiment of nationhood, our readers harry the editors with a definite sense of ownership: it is their ship we are steering. I do not believe any other paper has a readership so possessive.

Letter writers show our readership to be extremely politically aware, engrossed with national identity and social direction, vain about its own talents and ruthless with humbug. A mirror version of the paper itself. The Letters page reflects this profile and the Letters editor's role is to delineate it through the selection of letters printed, constantly exposing new readers and current attitudes.

New trends of thought are often indistinct unless they are underscored and the Letters editor must keep a mental tally of all such letters and decide when to expose a commonality of belief by "showcasing" a particular issue and opening parallel lines of argument. (And to do that within the confines of only printing one letter in ten!)

Apart from being a public forum, Letters to the Editor create the paper's internal sounding board for readers' opinions - even those that are not published. Whether the paper chooses to heed the comments on its content and direction or not, it listens. Many aggrieved non-published correspondents do not understand this. It is part of the Letter editor's job to chart a trend of satisfaction or discontent with any aspect of the newspaper - a process, incidentally, that makes us often feel like fifth columnists among our own colleagues.

The politicians' rule

There are some objections to running letters from politicians and notables. People feel the Letters page should be reserved for readers. However, this paper's readers definitely include public figures and we cannot shun them. Their letters, too, are culled. It is an unavoidable fact that certain views are interesting because of who expresses them. To readers who claim politicians pull rank to get published on this page, I point out the obverse view - that, on this page, politicians are put on the same footing as a member of the public, uninsulated by privilege. A politically active newspaper such as The Australian encourages both sides to respond to each other on the same page.

Certain views are perennial and their authors predictable: cancer authorities will write about smoking, sceptics will reply; right-to-lifers will condemn abortion, feminists will counter; the homosexual lobby, the pro-family lobby; woodchippers, conservationists - all demanding a "right" of response ad infinitum. Where to draw the line? or do we ignore them all on the basis that it has all been said before? Our precept in such cases is that we run letters that have something new or interesting to say. The topic itself does not guarantee a right of publication. It is in defence of this principle that we have combated certain complaints brought by individual readers or professional organisations before the Press Council.

A recent recommendation from the Council that a disgruntled reader's first line of recourse is to write a letter to the editor is, of course, common sense. However, it has placed an extra burden on Letters editors because some correspondents feel the recommendation guarantees that every critical letter should be published, that the page be seen just as a "corrective" sheet to the rest of the newspaper, bereft of spontaneity and invention.

There is sometimes a perception that the Letters page is the only vent for contrary views. Readers accuse us of bias because a challenge to an argument in an article has not been published on the Letters page, forgetting that we have run countering articles in the news pages.

The time factor is an insidious agent of "bias". New communications technology has created dilemmas for editors. Correspondents using email and fax beat the others to the punch. (More than half our letters are now faxed in.) Why should letters posted in be rejected because a faxed letter came in three days before making the same point? Then, again, why not?

More people are using typewriters or word processors with clear script. It is very tempting for a rushed editor to give long, hand-written letters the most perfunctory attention, or to depend only on faxed letters to keep the page more topical than a rival paper, in a world accustomed to instant news and instant communications. For The Australian the problem is accentuated by readers who are based in country areas with less efficient postal access. Those who buy The Weekend Australian often take a week to respond to an issue because they are not impelled by the urgencies of a daily paper. Moreover, because certain topics are complex, readers take time to evaluate them. We like to treat such measured responses with the consideration they deserve.

The dynamics of readers' responses must also be considered. The Arthur Tunstall-Cathy Freeman controversy was a case in point. We had an immediate flood of mail denigrating Mr Tunstall's criticism of Ms Freeman's display of the Aboriginal flag. Was this the mood of the country? No: a week or so later came many letters backing Mr Tunstall, from readers who were ambivalent about his stand but who felt pressured to point out a contrary view to the unmitigated criticism that first came across our desk. It is a mistake to view a single day's published correspondence as a comprehensive entity: we carry debate that feeds upon itself.

Readers want to know why we cannot tell them all whether or not their letters will be published. Our time is limited: the letters editor must read and select letters for the day, lay out a page, sub the letters, write headlines, check facts as far as possible, try and verify the letter is genuine, and discuss awkward cuts with correspondents. We bend to circumstances, however: when a reader - as it happened - had to interrupt shearing, come off his mountain property and drive 30 km to fax a letter, we obliged by giving him a nod over the telephone first!

The letters editor is in the invigorating position of being the journalist most in contact with our readers, but the job is rarely envied. We inhabit a twilight world, yipping bravely both at baying readers and snarling colleagues, trying not to kowtow, saying "Cheese" to the Press Council, offending about a hundred people a day, praying for a heavy mailbag, unnerved when we get one - it is all in a day's work.

see also
Press Council rulings on letters to the editor
Prof David Flint on publishable letters

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