Letters from the Editor: The letters we get

This Letters From the Editor column is about letters to the editor.

Nothing seems to have caused so much consternation this election season. I’ve gotten calls and e-mails suggesting we favored one candidate over another because we published more letters by his or her supporters.

I’ve gotten comments that we’ve avoided publishing letters from folks with whom we disagree.

That just isn’t the case. Public debate is our sustenance.

The last thing we want is a newspaper filled with similar viewpoints. That’s boring — a synonym for death in our line of work.

These types of complaints have poured in every election year at every newspaper for which I have ever worked. Readers feel passionate about a candidate and they want to see their letters in print — even in this electronic age — because a letter signed with a real name still carries more weight than an anonymous online posting.

But, just because we get these complaints every year, it doesn’t mean we do a good job of explaining our processes.

So let me provide some context.

First, we get a lot of e-mail, but over the last month or so the election missives overwhelmed our inboxes. We could not open, much less read and verify, everything that poured in.

To help remedy the outpouring of viewpoints, we devoted the Forum page the last three Saturdays to election-related letters. We got in as many as we could. Much of it made for excellent reading.

We tried to make sure an equal number of viewpoints were represented, and I think we did pretty well, but my BlackBerry buzzed all weekend with messages from folks who said we could have done better or that we clearly do not want so-and-so to win the school board or city council because we left out a letter by another so-and-so.

I don’t like cliches, but this one is apt: We do not have a dog in this race. This day is between the voters and the candidates.

If you penned something and we missed it, I am sorry. Feel free to post your views on our website. It’s another good way to exchange ideas.

I’ve also put in place some new internal that will better manage and track the letters, the writer and topics of the mail we publish.

So keep writing. Something tells me that today’s election is going to generate quite a few letters.

JOHN CANALIS is the editor for the Daily Pilot, Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot and Huntington Beach Independent. He can be reached at (714) 966-4607 and [email protected].