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Monday, March 14, 2016

On Having Your Letter To The Paper Published

I've been published on the letters page of the newspaper a number of times. Some of my comments have been published in the on-line editions. Over the years I've taught myself, through observation, what is likely to be accepted and what rejected and why.

But not always. Despite the page of "why my comments were not published" on the web site of my main paper, I have seen them publish comments that go against their moderation rules - and been rejected for some of my comments that didn't go against the rules. The moderators are only human, I suppose. They might be in a bad mood that day. They might disagree with you enough to stop you from having your say, even if they feel guilty about it later.

Yesterday, I received a call from the letters editor of the day who was considering publishing my letter about how science stories can be made more engaging by employing children's writers to tell them. The paper had published an article on the theme of making science stories exciting. My argument was that children won't put up with pages of technical language or with the "beautiful language" that would satisfy adults without actually telling a story. If you can excite children, I argued, you can excite anyone.

The lady said that it sounded like a plug for myself, because - ta da! - they know I'm a children's writer! I said good, but hardly anyone else does, outside the school and library system. The newspaper folk only know because they Googled me. Nevertheless, she argued, I should declare my interest. Could they publish the words "children's writer" with my name? Just to declare my interest. I agreed, adding that it would be nice if they did that more often, as they have published quite a few letters by people who hadn't declared their interests. (One of them is a high ranking member of a racist organisation, the other one practically runs her organisation. Neither of them has been phoned to confirm that they have no interest other than their opinions). "Oh, you should have told us!" she said and I agreed to do it next time, though I was thinking, "And you should have Googled them on their controversial topics, as you did me about my fairly innocuous one!" but didn't say it.

They have published my letter, cutting my sentence about children's writing being the last refuge of storytelling and adding a typo in the interests of removing my contraction. "Doesn't" became "doe snot." Ouch! I'll take responsibility for my own typos, thanks, and goodness knows, I get plenty of those due to the prediction software on my iPad, but this is a national newspaper.

A bit like the late unlamented Bulletin that published a letter from someone who declared "Jews are dupes of Satan!" but rang me when I responded, to make sure I was okay and then told me they weren't going to print my letter "because we haven't the space."

Ah, well, the newspaper at least published my letter, even if I did have to jump through a few hoops!

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