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1. Material on this site
1.2. Lists of FB's writings on this
website
1.2.6. FB’s published letters
1.2.6.2. Introduction to Press Letters
This Introduction is followed by FB’s
article (1.2.6.3.) giving hints
on writing letters to The Times of London, which for nearly two
centuries has been the national platform for citizens’ news
and views, from hearing the first cuckoo in spring to telling
the Prime Minister where he has gone wrong.
Then comes a chronological
list of FB’s published letters in The Times, starting
in 1949. The text of a letter can be accessed by clicking on its
title.
The letters were published on the main letters page of The Times
, except for a few at the end. The letters prefaced ‘BN’
was published in Times Business News. Those prefaced ‘D’
were published in the Debate section of The Times Register. Those
prefaced ‘LR’ were published in the Lives Remembered
section of The Times Register.
The footnotes give the date of publication of each letter and
other relevant information, with links where appropriate.
1.2.6.3.
Hints on writing to "The Times"
The Times is full of opinions; but
its readers have opinions too. Indeed its readers, unlike those
of other newspapers, tend to be leaders of opinion. I
would go so far as to say that if you aspire to be a leader of
opinion you simply must take the Times: nothing else will do.
Such reader-leaders have given the Times letters page its worldwide
reputation. However the Times does not put on airs. It does not
aim to be exclusive. It does not haughtily exclude from its prestigious
letters page the humble and lowly, if they have something to say.
This is how I myself have managed to get over 100 letters printed,
out of around 300 sent in.
My first published letter was over
half a century ago, when I was a Balliol undergraduate. The Times
then was a very different newspaper. The printed pages were produced
not by computer typesetting, as today, but in the hot-metal composing
room. The printers held the whip hand, and used it. A love-hate
relationship traditionally existed between editorial staff and
printers. For a whole year, from November 1978 to November 1979,
the Times was off the street because of a printing dispute. The
date of resumption, 13 November 1979, is a notable one in Times
annals.
In 1966 the Times was acquired by
Lord Thomson of Fleet, owner of the Sunday Times. In 1974 it moved
from its historic site in Printing House Square, Blackfriars,
to join the Sunday Times in Gray's Inn Road. After what was a
logistical nightmare issue no. 59,122 was produced from Gray's
Inn Road on 24 June 1974. The next big change, to computer typesetting
and photocomposition, followed the purchase of the Times by Rupert
Murdoch in the early 1980s.
It is widely regarded as difficult
to get a letter into the Times. In Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway
Lady Bruton found it difficult even to compose such a letter.
One composition 'cost her more than to organise an expedition
to South Africa (which she had done in the war). After a morning's
battle beginning, tearing up, beginning again, she used to feel
the futility of her own womanhood as she felt it on no other occasion,
and would turn gratefully to the thought of Hugh Whitbread who
possessed - no one could doubt it - the art of writing letters
to The Times'.
One day I had a call from a man who
asked how I had managed such a high proportion of letters published.
He hinted that many would find it helpful if I revealed the secret.
Of course there is no secret. But there are one or two tips I
was encouraged by this démarche to pass on to any who might
be interested. So here goes.
If you want to get your letter published,
there are rules to observe. You must concentrate thought to a
remarkable degree, expelling extraneous matter. The good newspaper
letter is spare, if not skeletal. It must distil the essence of
the subject, with no surplus wordage. In that respect it resembles
the best journalism. Even so the Times, when it has decided on
publication, will nowadays telephone you, usually (but not always)
with suggested ways of abbreviating your already condensed letter
still further. It was not always so, as my collection shows. Some
of the early letters are much longer than would be allowed today.
On the surface, newspaper letters
are expressions of opinion on current issues. Deeper down, they
uncover the self. One obvious way they do that is by proclaiming
that their author is the sort of person who writes to the newspapers.
It is generally agreed, especially by journalists, that such people
are of a certain type. Sir Sigmund Sternberg humbly thanked the
Times for its 'unfailing courtesy' in publishing his letters over
the years, unlike some other papers. To this the journalist Quentin
Letts riposted in the Daily Telegraph: 'It may simply have been,
of course, that other newspapermen thought him a bore'. One Times
correspondent revealed that when he asked a staff member why such
a large a proportion of Times letters were sent in by the clergy
the reply was 'vanity and an excess of spare time'
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells,
having quickly fired his paper bullet, may suffer pangs of regret.
Letters editors are experienced at spotting the hot epistle its
author will wish to recall in a cooler moment. Obeying one of
the many ethical principles that surround this area, they usually
manage to suppress it. Another ethical principle is that the Times
no longer allows pseudonyms. You must reveal yourself, and also
your full address.
To obtain publication in any newspaper,
you must compress in a way not required even of the professional
journalist. Even so the precious letter is likely to be cut about
by sub-editors.
Whether consent to this is needed raises another ethical issue.
The Times is punctilious here, but few other newspapers trouble
themselves. They figure the author is too anxious to get published
to lodge any objection, and usually they are right. Why so anxious?
That is a puzzle. Readers seldom notice the name of the correspondent,
unless they know it already. You don't gain fame by writing letters
to the editor. Rather the reverse.
Even the Times is less punctilious
than it was. I can date the change to 9 February 2004. On that
day Ivan Barnes, the Times letters editor, telephoned to say they
were minded to publish the letter that in fact appeared on 13
February. Instead of agreeing with me as always hitherto exactly
which passages might be cut if they found they needed the space,
and in precisely what way, Mr Barnes airily asked for carte blanche
(which was of course given).
Having run the cut-down letter from
Disgusted, some letters editors then delight in publishing
replies criticising the (enforced) inadequacy of the original.
Professional controversialists know very well how to strike back
in this way. Aware that readers will have forgotten, or missed
seeing, the letter they attack, these accuse the correspondent
of carelessness, or crudity of presentation, or sheer ignorance.
Published replies rarely address
what one has actually said. Occasionally writers may be able to
console themselves with the thought that at least they have managed
to start a correspondence on a topic they think important.
Another drawback which must be accepted by letter writers is
that the columnist or reporter whose ill-considered item they
attack with cool logic and impressive authority will simply ignore
the criticism. Most likely they won't even read the letter. It
is part of the journo's code never to read the letters page. Indeed
most regard it as unprofessional to read anything in the paper
except their own contributions.
Some unregenerate journalists, just a few, have the cheek to
contribute to the letters page themselves. This breaches the unwritten
code that governs these matters. The letters page is (or should
be) exclusively for readers. Journos can strike back in their
own column; that is what it is for. Even editors sometimes break
this rule of the ethical code.
The famous editor C P Scott wrote in his Manchester Guardian
words that should be displayed in every newspaper office-
'A newspaper is of necessity
something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations
of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the
peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted.
Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in
the mode of its presentation must the unclouded face of truth
suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred.'
One precept of the code says that if a reader writes in to put
right an error of fact made in the journal's columns the editor
must publish a correction. Facts remain sacred, and must be got
right. Especially in a paper which, like the Times, prides itself
on being a journal of record.
An obstacle to publication of a reader's
letter lies in the selectivity necessarily practised by every
editor. While railing constantly against various forms of government
censorship, editors operate a suppressive system which is entirely
their own. They are often reluctant to publish a letter that goes
against the policy of the paper, or advances an idea they are
personally opposed to. The media collectively have strong prejudices,
which vary with time. Here the term zeitgeist is commonly
employed. A letter which runs contrary to what is thought to be
the zeitgeist is unlikely even to be seen by the editor.
It will be discreetly screened out at an earlier stage.
The doctrine of freedom of the press
implies that if one paper rejects your deserving letter another
will print it. Things seldom work out that way. On some social
or political topics the broadsheets are monolithic, and the new
fad of political correctness has added to this constraint. Even
if the policy of the paper inclines against stifling all criticism
of a particular principle, however moderately expressed, the editorial
staff may exert their own private censorship. No newspaper, however
extreme in its own (that is its proprietor's) opinions, can do
without editorial staff. These are often merely passing through,
and tend to stick to the general media line that is current at
the time. Current is the correct adjective here, because even
though cosmetically the editorial approach appears faithful to
the paper's mores a contrary undertow will often be there.
Even the Times is not exempt from its tug.
The ethical code applies to the letter
writers too. One rule is that you mustn't send the same letter
to more than one paper. Another is that you must get your facts
right. Also obey the following suggestions if you really want
to get published.
- Avoid propounding an utterly outrageous view.
- Condense like a milk factory.
- Make your letter self-contained, so it can be grasped by
a reader who missed the item you are responding to.
- Write better than the hacks (though this will not win you
an invitation to join the staff).
- Subtly suggest you know what you are talking about, and are
probably, if the truth were known, the leading expert on the
topic.
- Don't however try to puff your own book: this ploy will be
seen through and censored.
- Make it interesting.
- Better still, make it compelling.
The Times,
18 January 2000.
For an
example see Letter 99 in 7.3.3.
For the
resulting omission see Letter 103 in 7.3.3.
5 May
1921.
The following article was published based on FB's experience
of writing to the press
'Keep
those cards, letters coming' by Alex Beam, Globe Columnist of The Boston Globe
There is a character in Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" named Hugh
Whitbread . Mrs. D detests Whitbread, the "prefect specimen of the public [meaning
private in England] school type." He is a snob, a prig, "a first-rate valet";
but he possesses a gift that his acquaintances admire: "the art of writing letters
to the Times."
I prize the subculture of newspaper letter-writers, the
men and women who beg to differ, or to amplify, often in prose superior to the work they
are criticizing. And publishing
readers' letters, as we do every day, is vital to the life of a newspaper. It reinforces
the useful fiction that someone is reading the paper and actually paying attention.
There happens to be a real-life Hugh Whitbread alive and
well in the United Kingdom, a lawyer and author named Francis Bennion . On his website,
francisbennion.com, you can
read dozens of letters addressed to the London Times ("Is Pornography Therapeutic?"),
the Daily Telegraph ("Should Bestiality Be a Crime?"), the Guardian ("The
Nonsense of Child-Centred Education") and other papers. Bennion told me that he
has never written to an American publication, although he was published in the Toronto
Globe and Mail, in 1975, bemoaning a teachers' strike.
Bennion has been placing letters for more than 50 years,
and he offers much wise counsel for the would-be newspaper scribe:
1 Avoid propounding an utterly outrageous view.
2. Condense like a milk factory. . . . [I condensed point
three -- AB. Speaking of condensation, New York Times letters editor Tom Feyer once suggested
that letters run about 150 words,
invoking the admirable brevity of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The inevitable response
from a reader: "Why does Lincoln get 250 and the rest of us a measly 150?"]
4. Write better than the hacks (though this will not win
you an invitation to join the staff).
5. Subtly suggest you know what you are talking about, and are probably, if the truth
were known, the leading expert on the topic.
6. Don't however try to puff your own book:
this ploy will be seen through and censored." Bennion speaks from experience. In
one letter, he tried, and failed, to hype his "book
of secular sexual morality entitled 'The Sex Code.' " He publishes the unedited
version of the letters on his website.
* * *
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. You can write him letters at beam@globe.com
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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