Chapter 3: We get stacks and stacks of letters

By my count, I’ve been editor of the Enterprise-Record for 25 months.

(All those who had “6 months or less” in the pool, my apologies.)

During this time,

I’ve written two columns about letters to the editor in hopes of answering questions about the rules and what gets printed and why.

Lately, as you’ve probably noticed, we’re getting letters at an unprecedented clip. Be it Trump, or Biden, or LaMalfa, or any of numerous political issues in Chico, they’re coming in so quickly we’ve occasionally set aside entire pages for letters in hopes of catching up.

(It hasn’t worked, but we’ll try again Monday.)

Anyway, the more letters we run, the more questions I get about the letters. So here we go again, with part three in an annual series:

How do you decide which letters to print?

I don’t. We print every letter we get as long as they follow a few basic rules, which are printed at the bottom of the Opinion page every day.

Yeah, you say that, but you didn’t print the last one I submitted.

That’s because it was

512 words — a disqualification right there — and almost every sentence contained a mean-spirited insult directed at a fellow letter-writer. I don’t allow that. You can question their opinions but geez, enough with the pathetic name-calling. It costs you credibility, not the other person.

Why the 250-word limit? I cannot possibly trim my letter without leaving out something important.

That’s actually a generous limit. Many papers allow only 200 or even 150. And if you don’t think it can be done, check the letters written by Roger Beadle or Scott Paulo or a dozen of our other regular writers. They come in between 240 and 250 every single time. Anyway, the point is, it’s the same rule for everybody and if we allowed longer letters, we’d have less room to run more letters. The shorter ones get read more anyway.

I saw a letter in the paper today that was far more than 250 words.

Why won’t you run mine? It’s only 285.

First, it wasn’t over 250. I check every one, and I never make an exception.

I’m going to challenge you on that and count it myself.

Go ahead. Make my day. Unless WordPress is lying to me, I’ve never so much as gone 251.

I saw a letter a while back that said the danger of coronavirus is overblown. That’s wrong. I don’t think you should print letters unless they’re factual.

Here’s the thing: There are facts, and there are opinions, and then there is that big gray area in the middle where somebody’s opinion is based off their interpretation of the facts. We give some leeway that way — up to a point. I send back letters every week asking for trims or rewrites, especially if a “fact” is wrong far beyond the point of passing as an “opinion.” On the other hand, I don’t reject letters because of unpopular opinions.

You sent my letter back because you said it was too mean-spirited and there was too much namecalling. But I see other letters get in that are pretty mean too. Why?

There’s no magic formula. I make the best call I can and some of you are very, very good at seeing how far you can push the envelope. (I think a couple of you actually enjoy it.). As I’ve told a few of you lately — try re-reading your letter without calling the other person a crackpot or a loony or a coward or a communist or a Nazi. And then ask yourself if it doesn’t read better that way.

Why don’t you print more letters in support of Donald Trump?

I can’t run letters I don’t receive. If you want to see more letters in support of somebody you like, write more letters yourself.

C’mon, I know you censor the ones you don’t agree with. Why won’t you just admit it?

Because it’s not true. In the past month alone, I’ve ran letters that praised and criticized Trump; praised and criticized LaMalfa; praised and criticized Biden; made fun of liberals, and made fun of conservatives; ripped and praised both sides of the city council; and finally, letters that criticized me. If I really “picked letters based on what I like,” I’d have to say I’m not doing a very good job of it.

I mailed a letter three weeks ago and haven’t seen it in the paper. I didn’t call anybody a name and it was barely 100 words. Why hasn’t it ran?

I’m glad you asked. As we’ve recently noted on our Opinion page, we are not working in the office these days because of the pandemic. That means nobody is there to check the mail most of the time. By the time I see a letter, it might already be too outdated to print. If at all possible, please email instead of using regular mail right now.

My letter is really timely. Can you move it up in the queue?

No, because nobody has ever once said “My letter isn’t timely so run everybody else’s first.” They run in order received. Period.

Thank you for printing my letters. It’s great we have an outlet that values differing points of view.

Thank you. I mean, you know, we’re not Facebook.