Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Small victories and a lesson in assumptions

My letter to the editor should be published in the next day or two. After emailing it, I received confirmation of receipt and a request for my phone number. This didn't surprise me since my hometown newspaper also required some sort of verification before publishing a letter.

Now the local paper is generally a conservative paper with little substance--a small-town paper with only a handful of staff, sort of standard. That I hadn't heard back yesterday or today after emailing my phone number had convinced me that while they would eventually publish my letter, they were not exactly enthusiastic about it. Since I had been on the phone for other things, I decided to initiate the call so that this wouldn't drag out.

So imagine my surprise when, after identifying myself, the editor said, "And I want you to know I agree with you completely."

I relayed this to Trillian, who was also shocked. In a good way.

After looking at today's paper, I can't help but wonder, however, if the original letter writer has been doing some of my work for me. Obviously I hadn't been paying attention to who was writing these letters before. But now I think that this man must write at least one letter a week. Most of them appear to be ranty and make odd comparisons. So maybe I didn't need to address his statement specifically; there's a good chance most people here know to skip over those letters.

But at least it got me to submit something on domestic partnerships. And I found out that there are some supporters in places I wouldn't have expected.

2 comments:

karengreeners said...

good on ya. i love a strongly-worded letter.

Aliki2006 said...

It's affirming at the very least to know that there are supporters--and so many, I suspect.