Chuck Todd - supporting the racists

[calimary]

113. Paul Begala once said that 100 paper letters into a newsroom on any one issue

would change the course of that newsroom on it.

Ever considered writing a letter on paper and sending it via snail-mail? Old-fashioned, yes. But it carries weight.

What WILL be the takeaway is that somebody out there in TV-Viewer-Land actually took the extra time and trouble to write a letter and mail it. Emphasis on the vehemence of the sentiment in the letter that in this iPhone/text/tweet day and age somebody actually went to extra trouble to write a letter and mail it in. The other takeaway is: if ONE person wrote this sentiment, that represents a larger universe of others who feel the same way but can't write in or don't bother or don't think of it or don't think it'll do any good.*

* Can I tell you again/bore you with the story of my own experience with this, in local radio, back when I was still working? I was the morning news gal for a succession of morning jocks on several radio stations. One of the many that had request-line operators (gee, why would stations have had THAT - and some still do? Other than to do their own basic product-testing, and gauge listener interest in whatever songs were being played, and how many people wanted to hear that same song again?).
ANYWAY - the then-bible of the ratings services, Arbitron, issued a separate ratings service called the "ARB Talkback." This wasn't just a ratings tabulation where you wrote down or otherwise reported what station you were listening to or when you were listening to that station. This allowed you to write in an actual comment. In this one particular issue of the "ARB Talkback," somebody out there actually wrote in "entertaining morning news with -calimary- mentioning me BY NAME. MAN what a day that was. I didn't even appreciate it fully til much later. But there was this buzz that slowly made its way through the whole building - about how their humble and easily-ignored morning news chick (ignored because the news person was there because he or she HAD to be there, but wasn't nearly as important as the famous, hugely-paid, and marquee-named Morning Jock) GOT SINGLED OUT POSITIVELY IN THE ALMIGHTY GODDAM ARB TALKBACK!
People looked at me differently. Smiled at me more. Spoke to me almost in deferential tones. Moved aside in the hallway so I could pass. So help me, THAT SINGLE MENTION in the ARB Talkback SAVED MY JOB for almost a year. Because that was the time when news and public affairs was being severely cut back by new programming people who wanted only to "play the hits". "Shut up and play the hits." Hell, even the jocks - even the MORNING jock with all his famous bits and signature comedy routines - those were the days when even HE was told to "shut up and play the hits." But I became the best kind of untouchable. They didn't dare fuck with me. At least for awhile. It saved my job til I could find a new one and get the hell outta there walking under my own power and at the time of MY choosing instead of involuntarily being carried out feet first.

CC it to any number of other network news executives and/or supervisors and/or department heads. So the recipient sees for him/herself that other people at his/her level or higher have seen this letter too.**

** I read during the Iraq War protests there was a woman who did not like the way the NYTimes reported something that blindly took bush/cheney crap at face value when it was certifiably not true. She wrote a letter to the NYTimes demanding a retraction or a correction. She cc'd it all over the place - AND ALSO --- to the NYTimes closest competitor, the Washington Post. So the NYTimes therefore KNEW it was being dressed down in front of its closest competitor, so that competitor would know how they botched a story too. She got a retraction straight away. This one didn't get buried. She publicly humiliated the NYTimes for faulty journalism in front of its fiercest competitor. Which probably gave the Post people a good chuckle and a couple of extra nyah-nyah-nyah's.

And it then somehow gets copied, faxed around, posted on the bulletin board in the coffee room or other places where employees see posted messages and management directives and stuff.

Even ONE of these represents X amount more people who are believed to feel the same way but - - -
1) don't feel like writing in - it's just not them;
2) too busy to take the time or go to the trouble;
3) wanted to write in but all of a sudden the phone rang or the kids started fighting in the other room or something else came up;
4) wanted to write in but by the time they got home or near a pen and paper, they forgot all about it;
5) didn't bother because they figured it wouldn't do any good.

And the ratio of that one letter to the number of non-reportings who feel the same way can get VERY large, depending on what basic universe they're working with. One letter out of a viewership/listenership in a small town? One letter out of that same kind of audience pool in a large city? One letter out of that same kind of audience pool regionally? Or even nationwide? Hell, on the internet now, one message can carry huge mounts of weight. World Wide Web dontchaknow.

So communication of your opinions to monoliths like these IS IMPORTANT. CRITICALLY important!!!! And if a bunch of those letters come in, or if they start getting barraged by phone calls or texts or emails - sooner or later they have to take notice of it. You don't ALWAYS shout into a vacuum. You could be a section leader in a VERY large glee club and not even know it.

I've seen this. I've experienced it personally. I've lived it. And stayed employed by it, too.