19/04/2009
... don't give up"
CARLOS EDUARDO LINS DA SILVA
ombudsman@uol.com.br
Starting next week, half of this page will be occupied by letters from readers without hearing from those who appear in the news
This column on Sept. 21, 2008 had a wide headline: "Water beating down on a rock... keeps dripping until it dries," or until it breaks through (meaning: don't give up). The topic was the defense made for 19 years by ombudsmen and readers about the topic that Letters to the Editor should be from readers, not from people in the news or their representatives.
Starting next week, this dispute lasting two decades will at least be partially resolved. Half of this page will be occupied by letters from readers without hearing from those who appear in the news.
"This is about responding to an old demand by readers (and ombudsmen) for more space for letters," the newsroom said. The formula is one of those that has been discussed for a long time to attenuate the problem. It is used by newspapers such as "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times."
Another demand that has been made insistently by many readers of the newspaper through the ombudsman was resolved this week: since Wednesday, there are no more stories published over a grey background, which impedes reading, especially by older readers.
The debate about letters to the editor seems to be a universal one. Last Sunday, the "readers' defender" at the Spanish daily "El País," Milagros Pérez Oliva, dedicated her weekly column to the topic.
Translated into Portuguese and changing the names, typically Spanish, the text could have been published by Folha without any unfamiliarity. It did a good job of reflecting complaints which this ombudsman receives daily, such as accusations of censorship and favoring a few privileged people.
The task of editing letters is difficult. The editor at Folha receives 110 per day on average and only has space for 10% of them in the printed edition (another 10% come out in the electronic version). The one at "El País" receives about 50 daily and publishes only six or seven.
Few cases are more dramatic than "The New York Times": about 1,000 letters per day and 2% of them used. The challenge is so enormous that in 2004 Mark Duckenfield, a professor at Duke University, devised a course to teach how to get a letter published in the "Times." It was a success and caused a crisis because the newspaper accused him of intellectual dishonesty.
Letters to the Editor is an instrument to strengthen democracy, as is proved in studies carried out in the United States, where they are admired to the point of a play in a theater ("More Letters to the Editor." With lines composed by passages from letters published over 125 years by "The Gainesville Sun"), it had a successful run in Florida between 2000 and 2001.
I hope that Folha readers make good use of the new space created for them and that it produces good effects for society.
As they come, so Thailand and Greece go
On Monday and Tuesday, the front page of this newspaper showed photos of the disturbances in Thailand. On the pages of the world news section on those days, the political situation of this kingdom in Asia got a lot of attention.
For Folha readers, it was a surprise: they had not been alerted by the newspaper that something serious was developing there.
On Sunday, April 12, a brief reported that the Asean summit, scheduled to be held in Bangkok, that nation's capital, was canceled because of the local tensions. Three days earlier, another item said that 100,000 people had demanded that the prime minister resign.
The worst thing for readers in situations like this, in my opinion, is to be engulfed by news about a distant nation, with no great geopolitical, cultural or economic importance for Brazil, without explaining why and, suddenly, everything changes.
That is exactly what occurred. On Wednesday, Thailand returned to the briefs. Afterward, it disappeared from the pages. Exactly how this happened was just like Greece last December: for five days it was at the top of the front page, with seemingly exaggerated play, and afterward disappeared to the limbo where it was before, once again not exactly what it was made out to be.
If the newspaper does not show readers the reasons why a foreign crisis is important to them, it is better to relegate it to the briefs without creating expectations or questions that remain unanswered.
WHO ARE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR?
Letters:
54 from readers
7 from people in the news
Centimeters:
427 from readers
91 from people in the news
*from April 11 to April 17, 2009
TO READ
"Letters and Their Stories," by Overlac Menezes. Nobel Publishing. Marco Zero Imprint. (starting at 26.07 reals, or US $11.60) --stories about letters (famous and ordinary), letter carriers and the mail
TO SEE
"Central Station," by Walter Salles, with Fernanda Montenegro, 1998 (starting at 19.69 reals) --the importance, the mystery and fascination of letters are reflected in the character played by Montenegro, who writes them for the illiterate
WORTH REMEMBERING
Cases that need to be looked at again
How are the investigations into Operation Vulcan, about which the newspaper has not reported in five and a half months?
TOPICS MOST COMMENTED DURING THE WEEK
1. Ferreria Gullar column
2. Soccer topics
3. Congress
WHAT FOLHA DID RIGHT...
CAMPAIGN DONATIONS
Stories about supposed illegal donations by real estate companies are relevant and courageous, since this sector is one of the biggest advertisers in the newspaper
... AND WHERE IT DID BADLY
KOREA 1
The top of page A3, valuable space in the newspaper, is given on Wednesday to the ambassador from South Korea to speak about North Korea's missile launch; North Korea's position is not given until Saturday
KOREA 2
A brief on Wednesday deals lightly with a study about Korean immigrants and gives the distorted impression that the community suffers from "disturbances" in a generalized way
SAVINGS
The newspaper underestimates the Supreme Court process regarding the action of banks aiming to cancel hundreds of millions of payments to savings account holders hurt by the economic plans in 1980 and 1990
-Translation by John Wright
