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Aberdeen Letters to Editor Drop 13% in 2016

J.J. Perry reports a strange trend in participatory democracy—fewer letters to the editor in 2016:

This year, 280 Public Voice letters, guest columns and thank you letters were published in the American News.

In 2015, the total was 339; in 2014, 323.

Kind of surprising, especially in an election year, to be 60 letters behind last year’s numbers [J.J. Perry, “Editor’s Ballot Shows Impactful Stories of the Year,” Aberdeen American News, 2017.01.02].

That’s 13% fewer letters than the last election year and 17% fewer than non-election 2015. Perry wonders if maybe we were “just burned out,” but the decrease in letters doesn’t appear to correspond to a decrease in voting. In Brown County, AAN’s main market, voter turnout in 2014 was 54.1%; in the 2016 election, turnout was 70.79%. The 2016 turnout beat Brown County’s 2012 Presidential turnout of 69.62%.

I wonder: is it possible more people are scratching their political commentary itch by posting online? Do they prefer the immediate gratification of Likes, Replies, and Shares to the slow (hours! days!) process of print publication? Are more people choosing to comment in the safety of online fora in which they can control the amount of echo rather than risking criticism in the general newspaper-reading public? Or do letter-writers have a sense that they can reach more readers more quickly online?

12 Comments

  1. Ben Cerwinske 2017-01-03 09:42

    I’ve actually begun writing letters to the local papers. I think the medium suits me. However, you’re right on. If I put in the thought to make it worthy for print, I wonder if people will be interested by the time it gets published. Not getting responses makes it feel like it didn’t get read or that nobody thought much of it. Putting your name to something people in your community might strongly disagree with can be a little daunting. Also, if that happens, it’s difficult to give an adequate reply.

    Even so, I know that some of those concerns are mostly unfounded. Letters have their benefits. You can make your point clearly. And the lack of response and the ability to respond allows you to put it out there and then let it go.

  2. mike from iowa 2017-01-03 09:50

    I’m guessing it is possible some were disallowed for inapporopriate langwidge.

  3. Rorschach 2017-01-03 11:10

    Fewer people reading and paying attention to local papers. They are being replaced by instant online news & instant online opinion sharing.

  4. Porter Lansing 2017-01-03 11:16

    I don’t know anyone under 35 that gets the newspaper. If the DenPost electronic edition wasn’t so cheap ($4.33 monthly) I’d drop it, too. Mostly just read local sports and the comics. New York Times twice daily updates are free with news you haven’t heard yet and they have great photos.

  5. Roger Elgersma 2017-01-03 14:22

    might have been harder than usual to get positive about a candidate. But then these fantastic blogs are more interesting. More discussion and not just one person giving their opinion.

  6. tim 2017-01-03 14:51

    Did Perry make it clear that whatever comes in, he publishes? I’m guessing he’s printing fewer pages per edition than he did a year ago, ergo, less space, and maybe not as many of the letters to the editor which come to him end up published….
    but I can’t read the story, since they have a paywall.
    and I’m guessing all the stuff heidelberger writes all the time puts people off and makes them afraid he will attack and ridicule them if they have a letter to the editor published…
    so, it’s YOUR fault! :)

    and, really, what percentage of letters to the editor in SD newspapers do you find interesting enough to finish reading, much less remember or reply to?
    Hope it turns around;; and becomes a lively bulletin board for any community;; but I don’t see it happening…..

  7. Roger Cornelius 2017-01-03 16:52

    The Rapid City Journal seems to be suffering the same fate as the Aberdeen American News
    Even during the election the Journal was requesting letters from its readers. There are usually two letters-to-the-editors a day in the paper and some days, like today, none at all.
    Rapid City seems to be getting smaller and smaller for me, most of the time I look to see who the letter writer is and decide whether or not to read it.

  8. John Tsitrian 2017-01-03 17:17

    The online comment section underneath the articles and op-ed pieces
    at RCJ can get pretty lively.

  9. caheidelberger Post author | 2017-01-03 20:34

    Ha! Tim, I wish it were my fault, but some of the letters that do make it don’t seem to be any more cautious about faulty reasoning and other bushwah… like those letters for the Republican candidates in District 3—uff da! ;-)

    Fewer letters in RC too, Roger? That’s too bad. I can’t make comparisons to the AAN comment sections since I don’t check them that much, but I don’t see a lot of comments on the AAN site. Maybe there are more on the AAN Facebook page.

  10. grudznick 2017-01-03 20:48

    Mr. H, the AAN is dying the slow death because they require you to buy a newspaper to read it on the internet, and why would I read it on the internet if I had already bought a newspaper? And then Mr. Mercer and fellows like him send out titillating ads that link back to the paper which you cannot read. Again, if I had the paper I would not need to be enticed with titillating ads on the twitter.

    That Sioux Falls paper is already dead. The AAN is nearly so. The RCJ stays alive only because they are not the liberal bastion most think they are and they still post some actual news and make it available to those who do not put 6 quarters in the machine outside the cafe.

    Newspapers are dying. Bloggers are just like writers of letters to the editor with no real take or reporting, only opinion. TV is terrible and expensive. That leaves radio as the once and future provider of clean news to the world. Radio is where it is at.

  11. Roger Cornelius 2017-01-03 21:23

    The Rapid City Journal is afraid to death to cover any corruption stories or to do any investigative reporting. They haven’t done a single story about the Russians co-opting our election.

    The comment section of posted stories is like John T. says, pretty lively at times, but limited to a handful of regulars.

    Oddly the stories that draw the most comments are ones related to the bashing of Native American issues.
    When there is what should be a hot issue to discuss, there are literally no comments.

  12. caheidelberger Post author | 2017-01-04 13:33

    So the very biased national WND is reporting 31 and the local newspaper is reporting 16. Who do you think is right?

Comments are closed.