The primary reason for writing a letter to the editor (LTE) is to influence the journal to which it is addressed. That journal will influence its readers or — in some cases — write articles to with less influence in the wrong direction. If the LTE is printed, so much the better. Even if it is printed, though, it is only printed once, while many articles on the invasion will be printed.
This goal is one reason for concentrating on facts. Reporters and editors are — strangely enough — often impressed by facts. you are entitled to your own opinion, but jounalists won’t be impressed by it unless it is supported by verifiable facts.
On October 17th, instead of a letter to THE editor, I wrote a letter to AN editor. Marcus Walker is the Southern Europe editor for the Wall Street Journal. My e-mail to him ran like this:
Back on Sept. 6, you wrote an article saying that Putin was gambling that the Ukrainian army would break down before the Russian economy did. I responded with a LTE pointing out that a third option was that the Russian army would break down.
Now, Kenya has broken up a ring "hiring" its citizens for "jobs" which end up putting them in the Russian army in Ukraine. Other African countries and some south Asian countries are also victims of similar cheats.
I would suggest that the Kremlin wouldn't. risk their relationship with third-world countries if they were confidant in their control of their own recruits
One possibility of this sort of communication which I exploited in this letter is that you can deal with a past article. In the matter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a good deal of the news consists of Russian (and Putin’s American fanboys’) projection of future Russian victories. Most papers won’t consider a LTE pointing out how those projections have gone agley. Writing the specific author is a work-around to get that info ito the head of somebody who will write the next article.
