Road Trip!
Post-Trip Review: Epilogue
Alakazam!
Note: This is the last in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
Most of the posts comprising the post-trip review were written well over a year after my last Road Trip letter was published, so in a sense the whole review is one big epilogue to the letter-writing effort. But just as I feel nostalgic for the original project, I now also feel nostalgic for the comparatively short effort of writing the post-trip review. And so I shall write this epilogue to put a definite period on the whole thing.
I don’t have a new point to make, but I think it is worth repeating my point that I wish local newspapers would continue to report locally but would also find a way to engage globally. It strikes me as very odd to publish something on the Internet, where it is conceivably visible to the entire world, but to discourage interactions by anyone outside the circulation area.
I completely understand the need for paywalls, so I’m not saying that local papers can afford to give away their product for free. But I think they should consider doing the following:
Allowing letter or commentary submissions from anyone, anywhere in the world. This would not have to cost a great deal of money. If they still wanted to give priority to locals they could easily do so. Computers are good at sorting things. Editors could, if they prefer, dip into the not-from-around-here bucket only if the local letters are sparse or not very interesting.
Creating a dedicated page for letters and commentary, separate from the letters that already appear on the editorial page. This would cost money. But since it is not the editorial page, they could sell ads on this page. On my road trip I did see a few newspapers that publish a kind of “shout out” page, but in my view the content is woefully truncated and the effect is of rabble shouting over each other. I like the inclusiveness, but how about we still have a few submission guidelines, and publish entire pieces?
Notifying submitters via email when you publish their letters. Minimal cost, and the computers can do this easily. Just add a box to your submission forms: Notify you upon publication at your email address? Easy. They already acknowledge submissions via email, so there is no technical obstacle to notifying upon publication. I worked in publishing technology; I know it can be done. Just program in an automatic action whenever a letter is moved onto the editorial page.
Creating one-day subscriptions for $1. This will allow writers to obtain clippings when their works are published; they could do so upon receiving the email notification as described above. Are there enough would-be writers to make these subscriptions worthwhile? I don’t know. Why don’t you look into how many writers spend a lot more than $1 on books that tell them how to get published—but then they never get published anywhere? Lots of wannabe writers out there spending money, but no, I do not know how many would pony up for these short-term subscriptions if you published their letters. I, for one, took out many short-term subscriptions, some costing upward of $20, in order to obtain beautiful newsprint images of the pages with my letters, but I am a well-known craver of ink. I admit that my anecdote about myself does not constitute data. But I also know that the money I spent on subscriptions was money that dozens of newspapers would not have otherwise received. The ads I viewed while following local newspapers were ads that I would not have otherwise seen. I do not claim that the aspiring-writer market would move the needle on newspaper revenue. I simply claim that such a market exists and it would be interesting to see newspapers make a concerted effort to exploit it (in a good way).
Yes, these self-serving suggestions are all about rolling out the red carpet and making letter-writing road trips much, much easier. I happily admit it, because I think both writers and publishers will benefit if some small part of the paper is turned into a writers’ playground. So roll out that carpet, and watch the writers swing into action.
I could go on ad infinitum justifying these ideas, but I think my road trip demonstrates my vision of mutually beneficial engagement between writers and publications: we write, they edit and publish, and if the writing is good then readers enjoy it. Would this lead to more readers, or better retention of existing readers? Hell, I don’t know. But I do know that as papers reduce the quantity and quality of their content, they lose subscribers. Does it automatically follow that encouraging global engagement, and a shot of well-written commentary from folks from all over would help in any way? No.
Still, it would be fun in a last-gasp-let’s-try-anything kind of way.
Defenders of the current way take note: as I write this, my local paper, The Anniston Star, has now, for the second time in three years, ceased publishing an editorial page. When they did that in 2020, it was for budgetary reasons and the then-editor resigned rather than fire more staff members. After around six months with no editorial page they hired a new editor and resumed publishing opinion, including letters. All seemed well for a year and a half, but about two weeks ago that editor wrote his farewell column, and we have not had an editorial page since then.
I suppose the paper can survive by reporting local doings with no opinion. But is it then really a newspaper, or has it become a community newsletter? Newsletters are valuable, of course, but perhaps a publication that no longer has an editorial position or an outlet for reader expression should clearly label itself as a newsletter so nobody expects to encounter anything other than mere events.
Even as local newspapers decline, their reporting of high school sports continues in robust good health. It’s a shame that there is not a tenth of the appetite for editorial/opinion that there is for softball, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and, of course football football football. Can you think of anything that school sports might have that editorial/opinion lacks? How about lots of involvement by a huge number of people who enjoy seeing their names, and the names of people they know, in print? How about entertainment value? How about expressive style—sports writers are usually very good.
So, why couldn’t editorial/opinion, or even an offshoot consisting of all reader commentary, adopt the features of the thriving, bustling sports section?
Nope. There’s only one way to do it, and that’s to make editorial as stuffy and as exclusive as possible until the publisher tells you that something has to go, and it’s not the sports section.
Gosh, I sound mad when I’m trying to say that what editorial/opinion needs is more people and more fun. So having finally said just that, I’ll stop ranting.
I said I would put a period on all of this, and I will. But I must admit that in looking at my publishing statistics, 87 letters is a nice, high number but it has a major flaw: it is not 100 letters. And so while I may not embark on another full-time road trip, I will submit letters when the mood strikes me until I get 13 more into print.
Or I should say 12, because, you know, while writing the post-trip review posts I saw a funny story about a medical study, and I couldn’t resist writing a letter, and I knew just the place to submit it, and one thing led to another…
Leave That Schnoz Alone
As it appeared in the Minot Daily News on 11/26/2022.
Period.
Update on 06/12/2023:
Did I say “period”? Silly me. What with all the foreshadowing of the eventual march to publication of a nice, round 100 letters, I should have ended with “Stay tuned,” or “Watch this space,” or “The end…or is it?”
Since the road trip ended long ago, and since I finished my post-road-trip review last November, I don’t actively pursue letter writing. However, every now and then I start writing about something in an email and a few hundred words into it, self-awareness kicks in and I cut the emerging essay from the email and put it into a separate document. Later I revisit it and see if it can be made into something amusing, either as a blog post or as a letter to a newspaper.
Based on the seven months since the last published letter, you can see that most of my efforts must go into blog posts, or they feed into my fiction production line, or they go nowhere. This time, though, mine and Geri’s mattress-shopping experience struck me as very likely Andy Rooney-style letter material.
The essay was too long for most newspapers. When that happens, your options are to give up, or to cut it down to size, or (my favorite) submit it to the Minot Daily News. MDN is an interesting case. Their online submission form has a text box that does not limit you in any way (or at least I haven’t found the limit). Their editorial guidelines recommend a maximum length of 500 words, which is at the very highest end for all newspapers in my experience. 200 is the most common maximum word count. They add that “shorter is better”. That said, though, I have always sent them my longest letters and they have published six of them without cutting or altering a single word. I don’t know if that means that they really don’t care about length, or that my work is just that good, or that they don’t receive enough decent letters to fill up the page so they give me a free pass. I wish I knew for sure. I do notice that they publish a lot of long letters by others, so I know I’m not a unique case.
On the sporadic road to 100 letters, I do not intend to overuse Minot’s liberal letters policy, but neither will I neglect them. They are a friendly home for road trippers.
Here is letter #89:
Mattress Shoppers Beware: AI Is Here
As it appeared in the Minot Daily News on 06/10/2023.
Period.
Wait…I mean “comma.”
Or…onward!
Or…watch this space——>’ ‘←————
Boing!