Thomas Crampton talks about the small amount of letters to the editor that the International Herald Tribune gets.
We receive at the IHT roughly 30 letters per day, of which 10-15 are usable, the letters editor said. We end up publishing roughly six.
These are letters by e-mail or fax or post. I wonder is it the same for Irish papers? When you think about all those moronic phone-in polls on the like of TV3 and Sky News where it seems 100s of not 1000s of people text in their opinion then that is seriously low. The likes of the Last Word on TodayFM get inundated with emails and texts on certain topics. Everyone is happily burying papers but I have to wonder why so little letters for such a large distribution?
Texts are immediate I guess, as are many emails to the radio shows. You listen to something on the radio and you txt in right away and they will probably read it out just after the piece. Instant satisfaction for you and quick and cheap. With papers your reply is delayed by at least 24 hours. Very much like “Oh, what was it I was talking about again? Oh yeah.”