By Eric Wamanji @manjis
Every student of media knows about it –feedback is fundamental in the communication enterprise. Yet, it comes as a surprise when some newspapers unwittingly prefer to ignore this cardinal creed and cog in the enterprise of publishing.
Thus, everyday, I have watched with spectacular horror as this misnomer rolls on with no intention of rectification. Just what informs this blatant defiance to principle and practice of the craft that is newspaper production?
You see, folks, feedback is intrinsic to mankind. We are also socialised to respond to messages. Reducing your audience to mere and sheer consumers without affording them an opportunity for reply means several things: an indoctrination effort, ignorance of brand building, or an attitude that suggests the audience has nothing to say back. All premises are flawed.
The daily newspaper, much as it’s a private concern, has (or it ought to have) public interests. Therefore, as a public square for intercourse of ideas, the letters to the editor section is critical to live to this agora essence. In discourses with society, letters allow multiplicity of thought and therefore enriching and sustaining debate on issue of public interest.
Newspapers worth their names have dedicated editors who work around these pages to ensure that the spirit of public discourse is kept alive.
Letters to the editor is a way of telling your readers that you respect them, and that you value their opinion too. Indeed, no one wants to be told everything without interjection and reply.
Those letters affords the readers room to complain, clarify, compliment, advise, and therefore a critical platform in any media enterprise as it is to society. As it were, currently such newspapers are denying the everyday correspondent, an opportunity to be part of the market place of ideas.
Such discourses are also critical services to the social political and cultural order of the nation. They foster enlightenment and encourage critical-thinking and engagement. They help to diffuse misunderstanding, and who knows, would provide a tip for the next big story.
Your letters facilitate the reader to enjoy the freedom of expression. What right do we have to claim to be acting on the public interest while often the stories we carry are the opinions of the elite, yet the voice of the public is ignored? Don’t we think we are disenfranchising the public of this inherent right to communicate?
Further, the reader is denied a sublime opportunity to connect with the paper’s brand. I would have expected that the brand manager detected this variance and protested because it is doing a disservice to the paper.
In our audience studies, we know that there is nothing as thrilling to a letter writer as when their letters are printed on the paper. Apart from flossing around to their peers and relatives, such pieces are carefully cut and kept. They become a memento. Which branding person would not desire to have their product held so dearly by the customer?
When they like you, they trust you. They defend your name. That way such loyalty will eventually transform to increased and reliable readership. Accordingly, you will smile all the way to the bank. And if your interest is certain ideological persuasion, even the better because believability comes with liking and loyalty.
From a psychological point of view, the more people write to your paper the more engaged they are, and the more they construct commitment, as is the forging of emotional attachment and loyalty. It is like hitting the sweet-spot.
Indeed, strategic thinking ordains that you craft a way of encouraging as many of your audience as is possible to feel obliged to engage with you.
With the falling numbers of newspaper readers worldwide, and with a multiplicity of sources of information, a strategic newspaper is one that will involve the reader by providing as much room for interaction as possible. Folks, start with the letters pages.
Where I sit as a brand strategist and a scholar of media, my free advise to such papers is simple: create the letters pages, dedicate an editor to that important section and encourage the reader to write back. Your fortunes will improve accordingly.
The writer is a communication and media advisor Wamanji@rococo.co.ke  @manjis