How to reject a letter writer.

John Young, Waco, Texas (Tribune-Herald)--My editor wants to "raise the bar" for discourse in letters and to start rejecting more of them, as well as explaining to at least some of those writers (the more frothy ones) why their offerings didn't measure up--name-calling, particularly. Who out there sends rejection letters of that sort, and do you have bullet-proof phrasing to share ... ? I fear said letter might open a can of worms, but maybe you now how to calm night crawlers.

Wally Haas, Rockford, Illinois (Register Star)--We have a postcard we send for rejected letters. It has six standard rejections to check, plus "other."

* Your letter does not address a public issue.

* Your letter repeats what you said in a previously published letter.

* You have asked that your name be withheld from publication. It is our policy that no unsigned letters be published.

* Due to the volume of mail received, your letter cannot be published in a timely manner.

* The letter amounts to a commercial pitch.

* This letter is too long.

R. Thomas Berner, (professor emeritus of journalism and American studies, Pennsylvania State University)--I'm responding not by experience but with frustration resulting from reading useless letters in newspapers. (I sense that every letter submitted to my local paper gets published.) I would suggest something like this:

We are rejecting your letter because it does not contribute to the standards of public discourse we have established for our editorial page.

As far as explaining in detail: forget it. I don't think you can come up with an "objective" set of standards. You're an editor and you know a good letter when you see one and you know a bad letter when you see one.

Mark Mahoney, Glens Falls, New York (The Post-Star)--We have the same problem occasionally. In those cases, we call the writer and suggest phrasing to tone down the letters, telling them we want our letters to maintain a civil tone. We don't want to quash their anger, just get them to express it in a more diplomatic way. They usually agree to the changes we suggest. But if they don't, we don't publish their letter. We have a rejection letter with a check-off list of reasons a letter would be rejected. But if we can fix a letter, we'll run it.

Alan Cochrum, Fort Worth, Texas (Star-Telegram)--When I was letters editor, we had a rejection postcard that was sent to writers of unwanted snail-mail letters. (This was before e-mail submissions really took off.) It said something like:

"Hi, we're not using your letter. By the way, did you include your name, address and phone number? Was it overly long? Did you already have a letter printed this month? You can call us if you want more information."

This allowed us to address some of the most common problems but avoid a long list of possibilities, some of them not very complimentary to the recipient. Frankly, if I reject a letter based on "froth" (to use my former Waco colleagues term), I'd rather try to be diplomatic over the phone (when or if they call) than in a mailed note.

A suggestion on e-mail: Draw up a boilerplate rejection paragraph that you can paste on top of an e-mailed letter when returning it. This is particularly handy if the problem is length or lack of identification information; just alter the boilerplate to ask the writer to deal with the specific problem.

Dave Dudajek, Utica, New York (Observer-Dispatch)--Likewise, we have a postcard citing reasons why a letter might have been rejected. Among them:

* Too long * No anonymous letters * Outdated topic * Contains personal attacks * No poetry * Consumer complaint * Deals with litigation * No phone number included for verification

We've adopted a very strict verification system that includes several steps to make sure the writer is who he or she claims to be. We (and a few other papers) were burned earlier this year by a fleck for a local candidate who wrote something critical of the opponent and signed a phony name.

Knowing that we call all letter writers to verify, this crafty fellow phoned us first to "confirm" that he had written a letter and that he wanted to verify it before leaving town for vacation. Our mistake was we didn't phone him back to reconfirm, but it seemed benign enough, and in the heat of battle, well....

Anyway, we now check addresses and phone numbers on the letter with phone books, city directories, or even by Google as the first step in our verification process. We next phone the writer and ask whether he or she wrote a letter and what it is about. We insist on speaking with the writer, which means no wives, husbands, kids, or secretaries can verify for the person whose name is on the letter. This has ticked off some big shots, whose secretaries or PR sorts have attempted to OK it. But hey, that's the rule. Live with it.

So when we talk about public discourse, I think it extends, too, to an attitude shared by some who seem to think it's perfectly acceptable to lie in order to deliver their message. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?