In response to Steve Fidel’s “The Universe Needs Your Voice Too” (9/3/13):
I appreciated this outreach to students and faculty for contribution, and it’s timing could not have been more appropriate. I would especially appreciate a guest editorial on how to properly write an editorial letter, tips on getting such a letter published, etc. For newspapers, there is an editor more important than any other, and that is the reader himself. Without the relationship between media and individual, a newspaper is nothing more than a diary masquerading personal beliefs as the pulse of a community.
This paper is an accurate pulse, but to remain that way, it needs our help. Brother Fidel raises an excellent point when it comes to this, the Vanishing Editor. I have had many instances when I wanted, or began, to write a letter (not only to The Universe!) but grew bashful or frustrated. However, I propose that this lack of communication is not a result of laziness or disinterest but instead, we are underestimating the value of our perspectives, assuming we’d be rejected.
I urge you (yes, you, right there!) to do what I did and take the leap of faith — send editorial emails, voice your opinions in new ways that make you kind of uncomfortable, because those are the circumstances in which your opinion is needed the most — if only because you need to hear yourself say it aloud. Save the Vanishing Editor! After all, “evil prevails when good men do nothing.”
Madeline Tracy
Las Vegas, NV