Newsweek

The Newsweek auto-reply note is looooong. I’m just printing here the part that discusses letters to the editor. As for the rest, if you ever want to know how to change the address on your subscription, find a foreign language edition, or listen to Newsweek’s weekly radio show, then just drop them a line.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for contacting us. Since we receive hundreds of e-mail messages every week, we regret that we can’t answer each one personally. We do, however, read and consider all e-mail we receive. We appreciate your comments and consider your feedback vital to the continued excellence of Newsweek. Hopefully, the following answers to frequently asked questions will be helpful to you.

1. HOW DO I GET A LETTER PUBLISHED IN NEWSWEEK?

We receive over 1,000 faxes, e-mail messages and pieces of mail every week, most of it from readers responding to one of our stories. Because there is a premium on space in the Letters column, we can only publish a small number of these letters. Many good letters cannot be used simply because of the limited space available. In order to expedite the selection process, please include the DATE and TITLE of the article to which your letter refers in the subject-heading of your message. Please refrain from sending multiple copies of the same message. E-mail messages that do not address material printed in a recent issue of Newsweek are rarely considered for publication, nor are letters that are more than a paragraph or two. We cannot open e-mail attachments of any kind, and will not consider mass e-mails or letters sent to multiple addresses.

If your letter is considered for the Letters column and there are editing questions, we will contact you by phone. For this reason, it is important that you include a daytime phone number. It is also important that you include your city and state (or province and country), since we print that information under each letter writer’s name. We do not print e-mail addresses in our column. Newsweek reserves the right to edit all letters for space and clarity, and letters may appear in electronic versions of Newsweek.

Overall, I think it strikes the tone of a good college rejection letter. (Total aside — I read that the whole fat envelope / thin envelope mailbox anxiety is now a thing of the past. Apparently the rejections, and acceptances, first come via email. Another cultural artifact bites the dust.)  Newsweek is firm (we only publish a few), but kind (many good letters can’t be used). AND they offer helpful tips on how to make it work better next time (keep it short, include your phone number). Maybe Newsweek is like the decent ex-boyfriend. A good guy who just happened to not be that into you.

Newsweek published an article called “Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama.” Is this seriously a thing? The KKK is back in business? Sometimes I can’t believe that such division exists in this one country. Truly this was a thought provoking article. But wowsa did the photo editor do a lousy job.

This photo by Bruce Gilden took up nearly two full pages of the four page article:

The photographer will probably win some award, but if I’m quickly flipping through the magazine, I’m thinking this photo belongs with an article about a new WWII documentary. The images do not in any way communicate the immediacy and horror of learning that despite that we have an overwhelmingly popular black president there are still folks out there who would rather see him dead than respect our democracy.

Here’s the letter I wrote:

Eve Conant’s article about the resurgence of white supremacists was shocking and terrifying. The accompanying photos did not, however, serve the story well. The choice to print the photos in black and white, rather than in color, served to give them a nostalgic feel. The black and white photo of a boy with military-style shirt and a buzz cut looks like a shot from a history book. Color would have better demonstrated that this is a current problem with urgent consequences.

Really, is it just me?