Regarding the "clash of cultures," it is not surprising that big and small city editorial page writers and editors didn't let any grass grow under their feet before discounting the new online publication, Rejected Letters to the Editor. The site is intended to publish materials that they (and their counterparts at other papers) deem unworthy of publication, and they no doubt see its very existence as a threat to their final word.

It is surprising, however, that they are rendering a public judgement without any time for deliberation. (They only received the RLTE announcement earlier today.)

This is the first issue of a work in progress that has, until the barrage of defensiveness below, received a very positive response from people around the country, including some in the armed services.

For these opinion professionals to dismiss the possibility that a rejected letter-writer might have "visionary" ideas, which is asserted repeatedly in their responses, shows a contempt for their readers and, even worse, for those citizens and others who take the time to write letters that editors may or may not deem fit for publication. The repeated claim that nary a "visionary thought" ever gets past them is absurd, particularly since few of the respondents sound anything like visionaries.

Overall, the fact that these people didn't spend time at the sight (Some were forthright about this: "Most of the rejected letters I looked at (hurriedly) on the Web site were way too long anyway..." or "I tried to read a couple. Too long. Too poorly written. Too boring, etc."), that they lumped every letter together in one pigeon hole, or that didn't care read a couple of more issues before rendering a final judgement, only underscores a mental laziness and arrogance that may be a part of the daily job they do.

I want to thank my colleague Prof. Stein for sending out our call for submissions. First, I want to thank him for introducing RLTE to some of the "too-thin skinned and too wise-assed" (to employ his phrasing) martinets who oversee letters to the editor pages around the country. I also want to thank him for this very public—perhaps unprecedented—compilation of editorial attitudes regarding the majority of those who write letters to the editor. We look forward to publishing it in a forthcoming edition of Rejected Letters to the Editor.

As for "The Ransom of Red Chief," I love that story. I always identified with the kid.

Best, Stuart Ewen

On Apr 5, 2007, at 4:50 PM, Bernard L. Stein wrote:

I took the liberty of sharing Prof. Ewen's announcement of the unpublished letters to the editor website with the listserv of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, whose members include the folks who decide what letters get published.

The responses revealed a clash of cultures.

Here's a selection:

I wish him luck, but first among the problems is this: I read not a hint of skepticism in the statement "Visionary thoughts are rarely heard." The presumption is that "visionary thoughts" are out there in the form of rejected letters to the editor. My reaction is: Not in the ones we reject!
Brendan Conway
Editorial Writer
The Washington Times

Most of the rejected letters I looked at (hurriedly) on the Web site were way too long anyway. Who publishes letters that long in a print edition? Not to mention rambling.
Linda Brinson
Winston-Salem

Far be it from me to deny that we in the gatekeeping biz are subject to the pressures of parochialism or cover-our-behindity. (After all, the motto of the editor of the Lake Wobegon paper is "I have to live here, too, you know.")

But I think this little project is likely to reveal two things, if it hasn't already:

1) A lot of this site's potential patrons may be much more interested in getting their screeds published than in reading other people's, especially if the screeds run on and on and on and on and ...

2) Those shortsighted gatekeepers often have good reason for rejecting letters. (Who'd a-thunk it?)

Alan Cochrum
Former letters editor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, TX

I tried to read a couple. Too long. Too poorly written. Too boring. I wouldn't read them if you paid me. Damn. I am paid to read letters like that.
Wally Haas
Editorial Page Editor
Rockford Register Star

Some of us (e.g. my colleague Linda Seebach and her crew at the Rocky Mountain News) have been publishing letters online as they come in.
Letting people gaze at the raw material we receive underscores the quality of many of these "visionary thoughts."
Clint Talbott
editorial page editor / Daily Camera /
Boulder / CO

Perhaps at month’s end we should all box up the thousands of visionary thoughts we’ve been arbitrarily suppressing and ship them to the good professor.
Dennis Mangan
The Vindicator
Youngstown Ohio

I publish them online as soon as they're verified, but I edit them first. I see it as my duty, sort of like taking a loaded gun away from a small child.

Some people shouldn't be trusted with a pen and paper; they're deadly weapons in their hands. I cannot stand idly by while someone butchers a harmless and defenseless verb and forces it into an unnatural transitive form (I will grow the economy!)
Pete Wasson, Wassau Daily Herald

I just got off the phone with a guy who said he couldn't possibly meet our 200-word limit, but after hours of struggle and toil he had trimmed his letter to a neat 278 words and e-mailed it to me "It just can't be cut anymore. You need to make an exception. This is important," he told me.

Here's one provocative passage:
"With a price of $2.159 per gallon in February and a price of $2.959 now the difference is $0.80/gallon.
That isn’t too bad but if your tank takes 4 fillings a month of say 20 gallons that’s 80 gallons and $.80/gallon comes to $64/month extra, this is a real hole in the pocket book."
I imagine you'll see this on the rejected letters site soon.
Scott Ayers
Opinion Page Editor
The Bellingham Herald

I just visited the site, and we should all be ashamed to "censor" such grand ideas and great writing.
Robert Benson
Opinion Page Editor
Danville Register & Bee

We get accused of violating people’s First Amendment rights by not running every vowel and consonant of their prose. Obviously, I don’t have space to run them in the print product longer than 300 words. But online, the sky’s the limit, right? I wonder if any of you lift the word limit for your online editions, as I’m thinking about doing. We’d still reject letters for libel and trashing businesses and saying bad things about people’s mothers. But if they want to write it, and someone wants to read it, wouldn’t the Web be a good way?
Mark C. Mahoney
Editorial Page Editor
The Post-Star
Glens Falls, NY

Say, I think Hunter College's Distinguished Professor of Film Stuart Ewen ought to pick up the 1975 version of "The Ransom of Red Chief" starring Jack Elam, Strother Martin and Alan Hale. You guys remember the great O.Henry story: These two kidnappers swipe a boy from a little town, then hold him off in the hills while they send a ransom note to his father. Of course, the kid turns out to be such a holy terror that soon the battered, bruised, scorched and bleeding kidnappers are desperate to send him home.

That's when the boy's dad responds to the ransom note with a counter offer, "which I am inclined to believe you will accept," the dad's letter reads.

"You bring Johnny home and pay me $250 in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back."

I have a feeling before long, the good Professor Ewen will pay us to take his Web site off his hands.

Tom Dennis
Grand Forks Herald
Grand Forks, N.D.

So what do I think? I think some of my editorial page editing colleagues are too thin-skinned and too wise-ass (although it has to be said that the impulse to bang out a quick response via e-mail encourages the wise-ass in all of us.)

Still, I agree that many of the letters posted on the rejected letters site are impossibly long. Tom Friedman doesn't get to publish as many words (917) as my union head Barbara Bowen tried to get The Times to print.

My newspaper, The Riverdale Press, publishes every letter it gets, so long as it's signed, authentic, and not libelous. To give everyone a chance to be heard, it generally restricts a writer to one letter every five or six weeks, but it bends the rule if in my judgment there's a reason to. But, while The Press will occasionally publish a 700 or 800-word letter, it will beg the writer to cut it down first, and I will help. (Writing short is hard, and most people don't know how.)

Community newspapers are among the few public arenas where ordinary people can make their voices heard. The Web offers an opportunity to enlarge that arena, and I was glad to see editors like Mark Mahoney and Clint Talbott respond through it they see a chance to publish letters without restrictions on length, elegance or expertise.

Bernard L. Stein