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Saturday, Jun. 27, 2009

Tom Frazier: The readers speak up, part 1

A couple weeks ago, I asked for reader feedback -- what's the Sun-Star doing right or wrong?

Readers responded.

Everywhere I went, friends and strangers alike listed their gripes, compliments and ideas. My Sun Dog e-mail inbox, usually fairly dormant, began bustling with activity.

It seems everyone has comments or suggestions. Some wanted to remain anonymous while others gave me permission to quote them.

There were four common gripes -- in no particular order:

Headlines.

Letters to the editor.

Events that were not covered.

Misspelling and similar miscues.

I was taken aback by the strong reaction to headlines. Folks pay a lot of attention to them. Almost all comments were negative.

"No cutesy headlines!"

"I have noticed in the last couple of years that journalists both locally and nationally have fallen in love with plays on words and other grammatical cleverness ..." (anonymous).

"Why do the headlines always say, 'DA's son commits crime' or 'Sheriff sergeant's wife commits crime' or 'Police chief's son held on robbery charges'? Don't these folks have names?" (Several readers)

Sun Dog has a favorite headline gaffe. One of my earlier columns pointed out that 80 percent of editorials first appear in another McClatchy paper.

The headline?

"Not all editorials are locally written."

The harshest comments involved writing letters to the editor. Writers were very passionate and protective about their words, reminding me of a mother bear with a new litter of cubs.

One lady, Florence Lambert, and I had quite a back-and-forth dialogue. She was livid, saying she was so mad that she probably cut her original letter into a million pieces. But, as luck would have it, she found it and sent it to me.

After reviewing her original and her published letter, I met with editor Keith Jones who gave me a complete tour of the Sun-Star's editing system. Afterwards we edited (well, I watched as he edited) several letters.

It was a good learning experience for me.

Here's what I gleaned:

a. Most letters to the editor arrive via e-mail.

b. The "system" is really primitive. It would be easy to lose things.

c. Most letters to the editor (that I saw) were too long, many much too long.

d. Most letters to the editor didn't focus on a single topic.

e. The editing process is mostly devoted to spelling, grammar and making the letter fit into the extremely limited space.

f. There is a booklet, published by the Associated Press -- the "AP Stylebook" that is followed religiously.

g. All letters are edited. Even though they may "not be changed at all, they do go through the editing process."

Jones has advice for letter writers: Make your letters short and limited to a single topic. Avoid long, run-on sentences. Use fewer adjectives and more verbs.

He also said that, "Writers seem to have the notion that writing a letter to the editor will change the world. It's not so."

Oh, what about Florence's letter?

Anatomy of a Letter to the Editor

1. Attached here is the photograph that ran inside the Sun-Star on Friday, Feb. 6, 2009, that prompted Florence Lambert to write her letter to the editor:

2. This was the original letter mailed to Sun-Star Feb. 6, 2009, before it was edited:

Editor: The true meaning of Ironic defined itself Feb. 6, 2009, in the SunStar. It was an article regarding the necessity to close all California DMV'S the first and third Fridays of each month in an effort to decrease the FORTY TWO BILLION dollar deficit of our state. It had a picture of the manager of the