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Apr112009

Do you think our letters are too long?

Filed under Uncategorized by nick pappas at 7:40 pm

It’s springtime in New England, and things are starting to bloom – crocuses, daffodils, tulips and other native flowers to the region.

But flowers aren’t the only things that seem to be “growing” around here this time of year.

So are our letters to the editor. (No fertilizer jokes, please.) That is, they seem to be getting longer.

How long?

Well, in some cases, much too long to even consider publishing. And that isn’t a good use of either your time or mine.

So I thought this might be a good time to reiterate our letter policy so that everyone at least has a fighting chance of seeing their letter in print and on our Web site.

Put simply: The shorter, the better.

When I wrote a column last year around this time titled “A few tips on getting your letters published,” I mentioned that your chances were enhanced if you kept your letters to “a maximum of between 350 and 400 words.”

And we’ve certainly published our share of longer letters over the years, some even in the 500- to 600-word range, depending on the content and quality of the letter.

Looking back now that I have another year of doing this job under my belt, I think we were being overly generous. I’ve also come to realize that our length guidelines are considerably more liberal than other newspapers in the state and elsewhere.

The New Hampshire Union Leader solicits letters of “no more than 200 words.” The Concord Monitor sets its limit at 250. Foster’s Daily Democrat caps its letters at 350 words before noting that “shorter letters are encouraged to allow quicker publication of more letters.”

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? Given that space in the newspaper is always at a premium – especially these days – writing shorter allows more of your fellow letter writers to see their works in print as well.

So how many letters do we publish now?

On an average day, we tend to publish three letters plus the “Online Comment of the Day,” which we draw from our Web site. If the letters are on the longer side, sometimes it’s only two.

For the sake of argument, then, if we were to impose, say, a 250-word limit, we would be able to publish four letters a day and the online comment. While that doesn’t seem like much of a difference, over the course of the year that could mean another 250 to 300 letters that right now never see the light of day.

And that’s a lot of opinions from your friends and neighbors that no one gets a chance to read or get agitated about.

Several months ago, the National Conference of Editorial Writers listserv carried a discussion of this very topic. And while there were a few newspapers to join the discussion that were generous in their word counts – The Baton Rouge Advocate in Louisiana sets its limit at 450 words – the majority were much stricter than here at The Telegraph.

Jim Boren, editorial page editor of The Fresno Bee in California, is a big advocate of writing short. He acknowledged there was some resistance when his newspaper went from 250 to 200 words a few years ago, but now “we don’t hear a peep.”

“If you go to a 200-word maximum, the letters are just as lively and you can use more of them,” he wrote. “So you are giving readers more letters at a time you are reducing other offerings.”

Among other newspapers with a 200-word limit are The Roanoke Times in Virginia, The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., and the Rockford Register Star in Illinois.

Greg Peck, opinion page editor at The Janesville Gazette in Wisconsin, recalled writing a column in 2004 when his newspaper reduced the word limit from 300 to 250.

“Why? Shorter is typically better. Journalists hear that message over and over. Write it shorter, editors tell reporters. People complain that they don’t have time to read the newspaper,” he wrote at that time.

His final advice to his readers: “So get to the point. Be persuasive. And only include the facts necessary to support your argument . . .”

If you’ve broken into a cold sweat by now, relax. I’m not suggesting anything quite that draconian – at least not yet.

But we really would like to see fewer 500-, 600- and even 700-word letter submissions coming our way.

Not just because we can’t accommodate letters of that length, but because unless you are one exceptional letter writer, your neighbors aren’t going to bother to read it, either.

And if you and I are the only ones to read your letter, then we’ve both missed the point of having a letters section in the first place.

So let me put the question directly to you: Assuming for the sake of argument there always will be exceptions, what do you think our maximum length should be: 200 words? 250? 300? A more enforceable 350?

You can contact me directly through my e-mail address below or post your response to the blog version of this column on The Editor’s Blog at http://blogs.nashuatelegraph.com/theeditorsblog.

Oh, in case you were wondering, this column came in at exactly 881 words. That’s the equivalent of between two and four letters, depending on what we decide.

Nick Pappas is editorial page editor at The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6505 or npappas@nashuatelegraph.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at TelegraphEdit.

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