The Media: I really need to know this....

[steve2470]

Does anybody "important" in the media ever really read our emails and letters ? How high up do the letters, etc. go ? Is it all a total waste of time ? Does $ trump idealism every time in the media ? Someone who has media experience, please help me out here.

[enigami]

1. Answers to your questions

1. No
2. Not Very (mail room)
3. yes
4. yes


short but true. live it, learn it

[steve2470]

2. knowledge from personal experience ? I am so curious

[grasswire]

3. some of them read their own email

People like Keith Olbermann, Aaron Brown, and some others often or always read their own mail and will sometimes write back. I've gotten notes from them, and from print reporters such as AP's Ron Fournier, Dana Milbank, etc.

I would say that if you want to get something read, make your email short and make the subject line interesting.

[Raenelle]

6. Helen Thomas replies to e-mails.

[calimary]

4. It depends.

I attended a lecture by Robert Scheer whose wife is, I think, the editorial director of the San Francisco Chronicle. Scheer writes a syndicated column that's picked up by many papers, including the L.A. Times. He is one of the Good Guys. He was adamant that the editorial boards (at least what he gets from his wife's perspective) look at all the letters that come in, and discuss them, and choose the best or most representative. He said they always tried to print letters that mirrored the overall load of the day - for example, if they had dozens of letters that supported Kerry and a few for bush, they'd reflect that in - maybe - six letters actually published, five of them for Kerry.

It depends. When I was in the news biz, the AP for example, ONE complaint from ONE member or affiliate - even ONE - would get the person judged at fault into "the barrel" (our term for "the dog house") for months. MONTHS! I can remember paying, and paying, and paying, and paying, and paying for some little boo-boo that some nutcase from outer Mongolia phoned in. I can also remember being singled out, by name, on a local ratings score-card when I did the morning news at one L.A. station. There was new management. They wanted more music and less talk - which automatically meant less news. They wanted to cut back a full-service news department with four anchor shifts (morning, middays, afternoons, and overnights) to two - dumping most of it on the overnights, and axe almost everyone on staff except for one or two people. My job was saved because somebody got an ARB diary, filled out the ARB "Talkback" section and put my name in with a favorable comment. They didn't touch me for about a year, while other heads rolled all around me.

If the letter is clever enough (or stupid enough), it will be seen. It will be passed around and the program director will see it, or the general manager, or the news vice president or whatever. It just depends. It's truly a crapshoot.

It is NOT a total waste of time. Particularly if it's more than one letter. Preferably several HUNDRED or more. They can't help but notice, the bigger a stink that's made.

Please forgive this. I don't mean to honk my own horn here (already enough of an insufferable loudmouth, thankyouverymuch), but I wrote up a few examples of my own personal experience in the Activism/Events Forum - the Five-Star Activists' Resource thread (at the top of the list) - check the post called "the calimary confidential" - just to illustrate, from my own experience - how writing or calling or complaining or whatevering DOES INDEED have an impact. It DOES make a difference. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, and sometimes it takes a damned long time. But it does make a difference. I've seen it with my own eyes. And there was at least one time in there wherein we thought we were facing utterly impossible odds. And we beat 'em.

Also the whole Sinclair affair with the anti-Kerry crockumentary. There's all kinds of machinery at work there. That one's a big one. And while it doesn't appear to be "effective" insofar as the Kerry program will still air, at least in parts, the company will hurt because of it. Their stock value's in the toilet, they've gotten all sorts of bad publicity and bad mojo as a result, they've created a martyr out of Jon Lieberman, their news guy who lost his job after he complained, more bad publicity, more lost money, LOTS of angry stockholders, lawsuit threats, sponsorship withdrawals (because THOSE folks, in turn, have felt lots of heat over their involvement) and more headaches than any corporation really prefers to deal with. This is one case in which we may have to be satisfied with the consolation prize of delayed gratification. No, they won't see the light and withdraw the Kerry program. But they wind up paying a huge price for it.

The good thing about an episode like this is that FINALLY-FINALLY-FINALLY some of these conservative crapmongers will face consequences for what they're doing. So far folks like Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their assorted frontliners and brothers-in-arms like limbaugh, savage, that little putz who's on with Alan Colmes (don't like to flatter his vanityship by mentioning his name and giving him free publicity) haven't been hurt.

But the war has only begun. Hope this helps.

[steve2470]

5. That was great, thank you so much, honest !

I will look up your posts and I will keep on writing. I wrote the Timer Warner CEO today. I truly hope he reads it and at least thinks about it.

[Eloriel]

8. Here are some tips for LTEs

(I should look up Calimary's thread before I do this, but here goes anyway.)

Oh, LTEs or LTTEs = Letters to the Editor. And welcome to DU by the way.

* Short -- 300 words is about maximum though you might sometimes be able to get away with more. I wouldn't count on it though. If you have a LOT more to say, try to pick out the various points and make several LTEs out of them to send in over a period of time. Keep refining your major point and doing what I don't do very well off-the-cuff: make it concise, pithy, pungent. The more something you say sounds like a "sound byte" (an original one, not someone's manufactured spin), the more likely it'll get printed.

* A thoughtful tone in your letter is very appealing, even for readers (and Letters Editors) who may not agree with you.

* Polite and civil (unless you want to have your letter printed because you sound like a nut).

* I have in the past been upset that one of my LTEs addressing some egregious outrage didn't get printed (usually re someone else's LTE, or sometimes factual error or bias in an article), and have called the paper's Letters Editor to ask that my letter BE printed in the interest of fairness. And sometimes won. Of course, it may be true now that you can't get through to anyone on the phone, as seems to be the case at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But it's worth a try.

* If you have a complaint about the paper itself (or other news medium), send your letters not to the LTE department but to the Publisher and other high ranking people. Better yet, call them (or try to).

* Call or write other media people too. I remember expressing my outrage in a letter to an otherwise decent sports anchor on a local station over what I perceived as a sexist comment. He called me! And we had a nice chat.

[lfs5]

7. Does it matter?

Somebody at least tracks trends and notes how various topics play with viewers/listeners/readers. After all, unless you're talking PBS or something, it's all about the ad revenue--have to keep the viewership etc. as high as possible to keep ad rates up, so even if they don't read any particular emails/letters sending them matters. Even when you get the stock response....They still know what moves you, and that's what matters.

[Eloriel]

10. That's true too

It used to be the rule that every LTE on a subject was considered the equivalent of 100 readers' opinions who didn't take the time to write. That alone makes your voice count a little more than one might think.

[Nordic]

9. CNN's news chief has written me back several times

[e-mail]

When I've been very specific and could point to a transcript, that's usually what gets a response.

So I'd say somebody, somewhere, is reading them.

Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dookus]

11. I get email replies

from Helen Thomas.

[jdj]

12. Carville said in his book that e-mails and letters don't mean

much individually (but in volume I'm sure they do) but letters to the editor can really sting people so go with LTTE's when you want to make an impact.

[Dude_CalmDown]

13. I never hear back from e-mails to TV media but I've received...

...quite a few responses from print journalists. It may be because I usually write to print journalists to praise what they've written and ask them to continue. I cannot remember the last time I saw something on TV worth writing in praise about. Usually when I write in response to something I saw on TV it's to suggest a pair of kneepads for some media whore the next time they "interview" someone from the misadministration.