Major Newspapers know a great deal about their readers, including how they read the paper. They know that many folks buy a paper for reasons that have nothing to do with news and discussion of events. They may be only interested in specialized sections like the adds; sports; even comics.

But the majority---and yes, they are still that---those who actually read the news, mostly do it like this. They look at the front page and then start turning the pages, glancing at the article leads until they hit the editorial and op-ed pages. Here is the first place most of those folks will stop scanning and start reading.

That means a successful letter to the editor in a major city newspaper can reach tens of thousands, even millions of people with your views---if they can make it on the page.

To being with, somebody has to take the time to write one. One of the saddest realities is that people in the defence community are less likely to communicate with the media than just about any interest group in the country!

In Operation Call the Media, we hope to mobilize people on a cross country basis to get "the grass roots" involved. But it is also important for members of the Commentator Corps to participate in letter writing, both to set an example, and to get the volume of input up.

Editors at major newspapers get several hundred letters a day via e-mail, fax and snail mail on every subject under the sun. When the small percentage of obscene and "kook" letters are dumped, they are roughly separated by subject, and separated again into pro and con. A count is kept, and relative to the paper's circulation size, it is multiplied by a "representative factor" that can vary from a hundred to thousands.

This process give the paper a "rolling poll" of what its readers find important, and what they think on these subjects. This reader input is always on the agenda of the daily editorial meeting.

 

Obviously, organized letter writing campaigns can slew this process, and that's why newspapers look for any trace of them in that input. When they are detected, everyone goes in the waste basket.

Last year the Toronto Star ran into such a campaign organized by Tom Wappel, the Liberal M.P. for Scarborough. A staunch anti-abortion campaigner, Wappel used a letter to his constituents to urge people to write in to the papers. His error was to give a suggested text of the letter, and hundreds of people sent it to the paper practically verbatim. They wasted their stamp.

For urging people to write and give their views is OK. Telling them what to write is not. Any successful campaign depends on getting individuals to express their views.

When it comes to actually printing letters, the paper is going to take a rough sample of the subject input. Obviously, out of 60 letters on subject W, only a few will make the page. Please note that the ones that didn't make it on to the page, still made the count.

The ones that do make it will be selected by two basic criteria---length and quality.

Here are two ideal letters that deal with comment: