If you don’t write, you can’t
get rejected.

If you don’t get rejected, you can’t
get published.

Have you written a “letter to the editor” which has been rejected by a newspaper or other publication, but which you believe would enhance the quality of public awareness, discussion, and activism? We are soliciting letters like these for a unique new publication. We are looking for letters that transcend the systemic amnesia of the daily news, and will have ongoing relevance for our readers and potential authors. The letter need not be current, but it should still be pertinent or of historical interest.

In the press, “Letters to the Editor” pages silently assert that journalism includes a place for the voice of the public. But inconvenient truths are too often absent. Visionary thoughts are rarely heard. Proposals for democratic social change and improvement are, for the most part, out of sight. Rejected Letters to the Editor, a new inde-pendent online magazine, is designed to provide an important, if only partial, corrective.

RLTE can be found at http://www.rejectedletterstotheeditor.com.
It is available to readers at no cost.

Our goal at Rejected Letters to the Editor is to expand the visible spectrum of ideas. To publish letters that will broaden public discussion beyond the boundaries set by the gatekeepers of our mental environment. We hold to the democratic conviction that public opinion must be educated by, and conversant with, the course of human events, and we will seek to publish letters that allow essential perspectives, presently unacknowledged by respected newspapers, to see the light of day.

Our purpose is not to provide a dumping ground for every letter sent to a “letters page,” but to publish letters that editors knowledgeable in a variety of fields believe will add to public understanding of the pressing—and not so pressing—issues of our time. We are uninterested in contributing to the widely rumored problem of “information overload.” Through our editorial choices, we hope to add clarity and knowledge that is too often fugitive. Rather than adhering to the mind-numbing news cycle, we will be publishing fortnightly and maintaining an archive of all letters that appear in the publication.

Please address your submissions to rejectedletterstotheeditor@gmail.com

Your submissions will plant the seeds that will grow this publication and advance the goal of serious public discussion about the burning issues of our time. Your voice will inspire others, and the long-term results will be to enrich the terrain of democracy. Please let us know which publication you sent the letter to, the item (with date) you were responding to, and the best way to contact you if necessary.

As you will see when you visit the site, letters are organized under the following department categories:

—• PLANET
—• NATION
—• NEIGHBORHOOD
—• WAR & PEACE
—• IMMIGRATION
—• BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
—• EDUCATION
—• HEALTH
—• LABOR
—• SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
—• POLITICS & PROPAGANDA
—• CULTURE & IDEAS
—• MEMORY & AMNESIA
—• BELIEFS

Even if you don't have a letter, please let others know about RLTE. If you are in contact with socially concerned people in your community, local associations, listservs or organizations committed to the principle of an inclu-sive, informed and engaged public, please spread the word and pass on this call.

Democracy is coming.

—Stuart Ewen, Editor-in-Chief
—Robin Locke Monda, Managing Editor
—Elizabeth Ewen, Editor-at-Large

EDITORIAL
(continued from the home page)

Among these imposing voices of “institutional opinion,” word of the existence of a Rejected Letters to the Editor publication drew an immediate and derisive fusillade of responses. These responses were then edited by Stein and posted on a Hunter College listserv open to journalism students and any others who wish to subscribe.

What began as a cloistered confab among people in the profession soon became a public—perhaps unprecedented—compilation of editorial attitudes regarding the majority of those who write letters to the editor.

To make these attitudes available to a wider audience, we are publishing this illuminating document, including Bernard Stein’s preface and epilog to the comments he included in his post. (See “Rejected by RLTE”)

As you will see, editorial page writers and editors from big and small city newspapers didn’t let any grass grow under their feet before dismissing the possible value of this new online publication even before a second issue had appeared. They delivered their judgments without affording themselves any time for deliberation or reflection. (All of what you will read came together within hours of the initial posting on the NCEW listserv.)

For those who bothered to visit the website before rendering their opinions, what they encountered was the first issue of a work in progress that had—until their self-protective barrage—received encouraging responses from people around the country, including some in the armed services. Rather than take a “wait and see” attitude, they chose to compose and send off flippant epitaphs.

One passage in our call for submissions seems to have particularly gotten their goat:

“In the press, ‘Letters to the Editor’ pages silently assert that journalism includes a place for the voice of the public. But inconvenient truths are too often absent. Visionary thoughts are rarely heard. Proposals for democratic social change and improvement are, for the most part, out of sight. Rejected Letters to the Editor, a new independent online magazine, is designed to provide an important, if only partial, corrective.”

One after another, they dismissed as absurd the idea that a rejected letter-writer might be capable of expressing a visionary thought. Unaware that their words might travel beyond their inner circle, they plainly exposed a scorn for their readerships and—even worse—for those who take the time to write letters that editors may or may not deem “fit for publication.”

The future of Rejected Letters to the Editor is unwritten. Whether this publication will emerge as an important venue for public expression is unknown. But this contempt for the intelligence of ordinary people among editorial professionals is very troubling and only underlines the importance of what we are attempting to build.

—Stuart Ewen, Editor-in-Chief
—Robin Locke Monda, Managing Editor
—Elizabeth Ewen, Editor-at-Large

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Since the listserv commentary appeared on April 5th, major and not-so-major newspapers in Los Angeles, Tacoma, Idaho, and Springfield, Missouri have posted editorials critical of RLTE on their websites.