Letters critical of HS coaches

Agreed.

However, readers should complain to the person who can actually do something about the problem. If you've got a problem with a specific story, contact that writer. If it's with a section, contact that section editor. Don't write a letter to an editor who has nothing to do with the issue you'd like resolved. If the editorial-page editor receives such a letter, s/he should deliver it someone who can actually resolve the issue.

How is printing the letter going to accomplish that?

 

Sure, they have the right to complain. In private. Send an e-mail, give a call. Or write a letter to the editor not for publication.

But for the paper to print a letter basically saying that their own employees were doing a poor job? Nope. Back up your people.

 

If someone writes a letter with a factual error, the paper is obligated to say so in an editor's note, in my opinion. Otherwise, you are knowingly publishing something false.

If someone is complaining about the job the paper is doing and there are no inaccuracies in the letter, it's more than a little thin-skinned to not publish it just because it's critical of the newspaper staff. Papers rip others all the time. You have to sit back and take it when it's directed at you. That said, you apply the same standards you do to all letters to the editor in terms of news value and other considerations.

 

I we didn't print letters critical of the paper, we'd have a hard time filling the letters section, methinks.

 

If the goal of printing a letter to the editor was to solve a problem, you would never run a single negative letter to the editor. Does writing a letter to complain about Obama solve a problem? Should the editor not run it because it should have been a private letter to the White House?

Stop being so thinned skinned.

 

Common courtesy.

Not an option to comment, but rather a heads-up.

Though, often when there are letter critical of news coverage, there is an editor's note.

And what of the letter that says, "You never cover Podunk," when if fact you have had a reporter at six of 10 games?

 

Editor's Note: A reporter from the Daily Planet has attended six of Podunk's 10 games this season.

 

Letters can be run supporting them, but calling for their removal, just for winning and losing games, is wrong.

Now if they get a DWI, for example, that can be debated.