E-Media Tidbits

Newsweek.com Should news orgs add links to letters to the editor?

Recently I bought the print edition of the Sept. 18 issue of Newsweek. Buried in the fourth page of the letters section was a reader letter with the headline "Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart."

In that letter, reader Britt Whitmire (Browns Summit, N.C.) criticized a Sept. 4 Newsweek column by Robert J. Samuelson, Wal-Mart's A Diversion. Some of Whitmire's criticisms included:

"[Samuelson] fails to mention some of the indisputable bad deeds of the retail giant. Wal-Mart has routinely racked up millions of dollars in fines for everything from making employees work off the clock to authorizing underage workers to operate dangerous machinery. Wal-Mart also uses Medicaid as its de facto health plan for thousands of workers. ...If you take families' savings from those low prices and figure in how much those families are kicking into Medicaid to insure the health of Wal-Mart workers, you get a truer picture of how much Wal-Mart costs a community."

The first question that sprang to mind was: Where are the links to support the points he's making?

For instance, I wondered whether Whitmire knew that Massachusetts may start taxing employers who fail to provide employee health insurance. Also, exactly how much is Wal-Mart taking advantage of state or federal healthcare plans?"

Personally, I tend to default to online sources like mainstream media sites (broadcast and newspaper), as well as blogs for my information. Therefore, I'm used to seeing claims like the one in the letter about the Medicaid/Wal-Mart connection  backed up by one or more links to other sources providing more information.

It is no longer enough to passively read another person's rage against the machine in a magazine or newspaper's Letters to the Editor section. There is plenty of unexpurgated spleen-venting on message boards, newsgroups and forums connected to news organizations.

Printed rants don't carry any special importance, nor do they demonstrate that the editor has listened to the reader. Printed letters may indicate that the editor found something of importance in a letter -- but I never know exactly what makes a particular published letter editorially significant.

Nowadays, when I read letters to the editor, I want to know whether or not the fellow citizen has a good reason to be writing that letter. Simply because an editor finds a letter voicing a particular viewpoint is not enough for me.  I want more information about the purpose of publishing that letter. If the letter points to a reporter's error, or a lack of information or context, I want a link to a source. Links, provided by the letter writer or by the editor, give me that information.