Silencing Our Voice - the death of the Letter to the Editor

 

One of the most important voices that the average American citizen ever had was the, Letter to the Editor, a nearly extinct practice in our nation and that is a terrible blow to Freedom and all of our nation.

For decades Americans would use this powerful tool to convey their disdain or praise for a number of topics in our communities, cities, counties, states and country but it’s been dying a slow death with the buildup of technology.

Better where the days in our nation before television and the internet, a Letter to the Editor was a really big deal, it wasn’t like social media, where you just post something without thinking twice, it was a decision you put a lot of thought into, that would stick with you.

Back in the day, EVERYONE (well, most people) read the paper, it was just part of your day, like bathing or going to work.  It wasn’t unusual to see most of the people on a public bus or train to be reading the paper.  Many had more than one edition each day because the news would come in from the night before and in the first part of the day, so many people would reading the morning edition on the way to work and the evening edition before or just after dinner.  So when someone took the time to write a letter and was chosen, it was a big deal to have your letter in the paper.

But as time has gone on, print media has gone downhill, and with social media, online publications see no reason to have a, letter to the editor section at all, this is by design, to take away this power from the average American to have a big voice in the community.

Print media is a very important part of American history, and it’s a true tragedy that it has been destroyed and downplayed to what it is today.  This is why the hometown paper in smaller towns is still a great thing about those small towns, it still means something.

Today, anyone can have a voice, and having so many waters it all down, it’s easier for the masses to just not give an opinion any weight because there are so many out there, flooding the internet, it’s just not a big deal anymore and that is a problem for our country.

Over the last sixty-plus years, we’ve seen important tools like this be washed away by time, like the shoreline and the ocean, it’s been eroded but this tide has been intentional, the American voice is slowly being taken away or overrun with a flood of others, watering down the ones who really have a great and important message to share.

Do what you can for your local newspaper, don’t just subscribe, demand that they do a better job with the news, get them to publish things worth reading and contribute to what is shared, it doesn’t have to all be dirty laundry, get them to be the Good News of the world and maybe someday, the letter to the editor, will make a comeback.