LTE Initiative and Workgroup

Written by: John McBride on Sep 18, 2006 9:11 AM EDT

Member,

[Ed Smith proposes a way to get out LTEs in a systematic way. Everyone can help in one way or another. Please contact Ed to join in this initiative. Address is below]


As you know, letters to the editor are the most straightforward way to reach mainstream voters we are looking to inform and persuade. Although many of us do this already, we can make a bigger impact by organizing our approaches more systematically.

This is a new way to get involved with your DFA. We're starting a Letters to the Editor group, which we can call our Committee of Correspondence. Your involvement and participation are welcome and desired.

Being involved for our Committee is simply done in two ways:

Fast fact response letters. This is where each of us monitor assigned newspapers and watch for any letters or columns that need important reaction.

Proactive letters that promote DFA ideas. These are letters of support for specific candidates or issues where timely statements are needed.

Sound interesting? To get organized, we need to get your agreement to participate. A large network of letter writers are important to maintain for two reasons. First, most newspaper editorial pages will publish a letter from one person only at regular intervals. That means you or I can submit a letter as often as once a week, but likely only one or two will get published per month. Having a pool of volunteers on-hand allows an important letter to get published regardless of the author.

The second is that most regular readers will readily recognize the same regular contributor; this can lead to readers dismissing the message because it keeps coming from one person. However, letters that come from new and unrecognized writers have more impact, and reinforce the impression that the message in the letter is widely shared.

We can also expand our efforts to key Capital Region blogs as well.

Interested? To participate, just forward the following information:

- Name, phone, e-mail address, and town/city you live in
- Names of newspapers you subscribe and read
- Names and URLs of Capital Region blogs you are registered in, and that you regularly read and participate
- Optional: if you have subscription access to newspaper sites or research services for fact checking and fact generation

Once I collect this information, I'll make up a simple matrix of people to contact whenever we need to quickly respond to an issue or send letters out. Feel free to reach me for other ideas and strategies.


Ed Smyth
ed@rlw.com
283-1260

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Location: Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY 12201