Letter of the Day: ‘This is the heart of America’

Editor, Index-Tribune:

God bless our editor. A while back I started to notice that newspapers across America were shutting down. The Sonoma Index-Tribune was sold and no longer owned by the Lynch family. The idea that the Internet was going to crowd out my hometown paper didn’t sit well with me. So, I started writing letters to the editor. The effort was to get people involved. I know someone is out there. I wanted to say something and at the same time I wanted to hear what others had to say. Hard copy, words in ink, on pulp, is something of enormous value. Something to be cherished and like many things if we don’t use it, we lose it. I’m not willing to let go of my hometown paper. Not willing to have free speech erased with the click of a mouse.

Journalist/lobbyist, artist/whore, words that anybody receiving a check can’t afford to print. The individual voicing an opinion has greater degrees of freedom than someone employed by a newspaper. The editor can print something he could never write, comment on it in the second person. Even Charlie Rose has to walk a line. The great thing about “Pulse of the Public” is that it is free run. This is as sweet as the juice that comes from the grapes pressed beneath their own weight. Organic in nature, fun to read, about the people, for the people. This is the heart of America. This is the grist for the mill. The power of the written word.

Editors aid and protect writers – from the public and from themselves. They not only correct spelling and grammar, they rein in the writer. A writer can push the envelope, a good editor can protect the integrity of the envelope without compromising the message. A writer should test the editor and the editor can coach. The relationship is similar to that of a catcher and his pitcher. Yes, writing is a product, produced with the audience in mind.

When individuals in the community contribute to the paper they are providing the glue that holds our society together. Man, I’m so tired of being hustled. Yeah, there is safety in numbers. How are you going to thrive as a culture without the written word. You can’t just sit at home in front of some hopeless 52-inch fad, and let someone else do the thinking. We can’t be a nation of spectators waiting to be entertained. Hey, wake up, I’m talking to you. Say something chummily.

Eric Heine

Glen Ellen

Editor’s note: Thanks for writing Eric. You’re clearly a man of high intelligence and unimpeachable sophistication, so giving your letter a prominent place on the page is certainly a service to the reader. (Ahem!) Seriously, thanks also for encapsulating an editor’s role – I particularly liked your baseball analogy; if anyone asks me just what it is I do, I’ll tell them that I’m the Buster Posey of print journalism. As for “reining in” the writer... well, this time I’m going to let the inmates run the prison – and your use of “chummily” will stand. – J.W.