Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor seem to be an ever-present thorn in my side, or foot, or whatever would be the most awkward and painful. That's how I feel about them. An active letters section is supposed to indicate a healthy paper, but I think it may also explain why many male editors are bald and many female editors smoke. Political letters, personal letters, advertising letters, letters of criticism. They're all awkward. Firstly, how much do you correct them? Do you fix blatant typos? What about unclear sentences? And what happens when they same something completely outrageous and false?

I'm inclined to print them as is, with typos corrected. If they look like an idiot, it's their own words that hang them. And, if something is wrong, I hope against hope that someone will write in and correct it in time for the printing of the next issue. Of course, there's a line when there's something slanderous (or just incredibly stunned) in the letter. Then, you just don't print it.

But, all the rules change with political letters. First off, Helen and I have come up with a policy for what we're going to print. Nothing from the party press office or campaign members--they can pay for their own advertising. No form letters. But we'll print everything else (applying the no slander and no stunned letters rule from above) as long as it deals with local issues, and is from a local person.

The slander rule is also different for political letters. If someone writes something negative about a person in the community, we automatically reject it. But for people in politics, once the hat is thrown into the ring, there's little the candidate can do to protect themselves.

And this brings me to my latest thorn in my side--really at this point which feels more like it's in my eye, it's that bad--a letter by a lovely lady named Muriel. I received the letter yesterday (Friday) and wasn't sure what to do with it. So I typed it up and sent it to Helen to see what she had to say.

Muriel's very upset because the Harper government hasn't revamped the Veteran's allowance as promised in their election campaign. That's fine. That I can print. But the problem comes with the following paragraph, where she asks:

"How in my electoral district (Cape Breton-Canso) did Alan Murphy of Antigonish (Peter MacKay’s long time personal assistant) manage to be declared candidate by acclamation—decided in Ottawa? Certainly the local riding association were not involved."

Now, Allan owns the paper, and is a lovely man. It's rather slanderous comment, but I know he's not going to sue the paper, and it is the kind of thing that comes with the territory. The other problem (besides her mispelling of Allan's name) is that it's totally false.

There was a public announcement of nominations being open. Allan just happened to be the only person who completed all the steps, i.e. completing documents, getting signatures, by the deadline. So, the riding association was most definitely involved and it wasn't decided in Ottawa.

And secondly, Peter MacKay has never had a personal assistant. He's had lots of help, but no personal assistant. Allan did work for him, a few years ago in Ottawa as Chief of Staff, and briefly last year as regional director.

So, that makes it more complicated. If I don't run it, the lovely Muriel will say that we didn't run it just because Allan owns the paper. If I cut it out, she'll say it's censorship, and same problem. And I don't know if I'd run it if it was someone else, it's just kind of mean. I also don't know how many other papers she sent this to, so if we ran a different copy of it than another paper, people would criticize us as a "tory rag."

And we can't have Allan, his campaign manager, or the riding association reply in this issue of the paper, because then it will look like we're trying to defend him.

So final decision? I guess we're going to run it, in its entirety, then hope that someone replies to correct it before the next issue.