stat counnnter

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

The Little LTE That Could

I had a slightly pleasant surprize today. I had written a short two sentence LTE and sent it to the Detroit News. It was actually the last two sentences from my post "Diversity, An Anti-concept." It said simply:

"Dr. King said he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Diversity is the attempt to make sure that kind of judgement doesn't happen."

Well, the Detroit News printed it today (Wednesday). Later my son called me to say that it was read on air on the Drew and Mike Show on WRIF radio and that they said the LTE made a good point. They were talking about afirmative action and were reading a few LTEs of which mine was one. (Last time I checked, WRIF was the most popular radio morning show in Detroit.)

So, the moral is; keep speaking up. You never know when your words will be seen or heard by the right pair of eyes or ears.

3 comments:

SN said...

Great!

I've wondered about how effective LTEs are and, until just a day ago would have said that nobody reads them. Then, today, a talk-show host mentioned some letters and I realized that this host really wasn't a very philosophic person and was quite open to being convinced by things like letters.

In essence, while few people might read a letter, some "broadcasters" do: e.g. many journalists do. So, a LTE is a means of "influencing the influencers".

Michael Neibel said...

Thanks guys. It's been my experience that a lot of media people read LTEs. They like to stay on top of which way the political and cultural winds are blowing. And Nerd, you're right, LTEs can influence the influencers.

Nicholas Provenzo said...

Well said--Congratulations!