What’s the Role of the Letters Page?

Normally, the letters to the editor page of a newspaper provides the main forum for readers to respond to stories that have been published in earlier editions of a newspaper. Although less common, there are also sometimes instances where a dialog continues through several editions, with a little bit of sparring between various letter writers. The Beaver’s letter page, however, has seemed to leave behind the traditional notion of a Letters section and has become more often than not a means for individuals and (especially) societies to use the newspaper as a means of reaching its student audience.

Obviously it is up to the editors to determine what letters to publish, and it’s an open secret among student newspaper editors that you publish whatever letters come in for lack of alternatives. Still, this week’s Letters section of the Beaver contains an incredibly low number of letters that refer to specific stories or coverage by the Beaver, and far more that are pontificating or announcing whatever they please – and let’s be honest in acknowledging that ‘whatever they please’ in this term has tended to mean back-and-forth arguments about Israel and Palestine. Snore.

So let’s just go through it quickly here. First we have a bizarre letter referring to the recent revelations of Prince Harry’s service in Afghanistan that presumably is meant to goad students into abandoning talk for action. However the assumption on the part of the author that students would consider Harry’s service in the military to be ‘protecting freedom and justice’ reflects a level of naivete and would fully derail the letter were it not for the hilariously worded suggestion at the end that LSE students ‘put their mouths where their arse is’. Mmm, that sounds tasty.

The most interesting letter is also the most infuriatingly vague. Some anonymous writer seems to make serious allegations about racism in the Beaver’s coverage but unfortunately writes a lot of words that fail to coherently enumerate a specific offense, instead referring to the way that ’some reporters’ unprofessionally direct ‘petty, unfair and personal attacks’ only at ‘certain individuals’ or ’selected … minority groups’, possibly on the basis of ‘racial origins’. The suggestion of a ‘hidden agenda’ at the Beaver is quite an explosive one, but unfortunately no specific agenda is described nor instance identified (the one specific article referred to in the letter fails to close the circle or explain how this represents the supposed hidden agenda of the Beaver’s reporters or editors), so we are left unfulfilled. If only the author had signed their letter, then perhaps we could receive some clarification, but alas, the name and identity of the author has been ‘withheld’ by the editors – possibly at the writers request? Who knows.

With the exception of one perfectly relevant letter on Cuba and socialism (referring to last weeks Blue is True/Red Isn’t Dead columns that this Observer has lamentably ignored all these months), the rest of the letters either repeat the same old arguments about Israel and Palestine that we’ve heard ad nauseum, or peculiarly simply serve to advertise the Catholic societies campaign to raise money for a school in Tanzania. What is this doing in the Letters? Maybe it was just there to demonstrate the Beaver’s willingness to print letters from Christians as well as Muslims and Jews. See? And you thought that they were prejudiced.