PublishaLetter Blog

The letters keep coming from all over- starting within half an hour of the beginning of these heinous terror attacks. Letters packed with emotions ranging from fear, frustration, seething anger to yes, hope. These are letters written by people from all corners in life – students expressing disgust to security experts offering suggestions. As these letters come in, on this unfolding situation, there seems to be as much anger directed at the terrorists and their sponsors as the hapless politicians of India who seem to be more interested in fighting with each other than the terrorists.

Given the volume of letters on the subject we created a new temporary category of letters “Mumbai terror”. This link will take you there.

http://publishaletter.com/searchlettersbytags.jsp?tag=Mumbai%20terror

PublishaLetter.com had a unique window on what people were thinking during the long election campaign. Most of the letters to the editors during September and October were election related. What were they like?

First, they were generally quite civil - especially compared to some right wing and left wing Blogs. There were Hate Mails of course (which were rejected). But not two much. People writing to the editors, probably felt that their letters could not be too extreme. Or people with extreme views probably were writing Blogs and did not want to bother with writing letters.

Second, the ‘copy and paste third party content’, mass mailed letters came mostly from the supporters of alternative candidates (Bob Barr) rather than the two main candidates. The site’s strict policy against mass mailing was a source of irritation for people that tried to mail the same letter to more than thirty or forty publications.

Third, the letters supporting Senators McCain and Obama reflected very much the campaigns of the candidates themselves. McCain’s supporters attacked Obama personally a lot more often than Obama’s did McCain. They raised questions about Obama’s Birth Certificate, Religion, ties to questionable characters among other things. Obama letters more often discussed economy, McCain’s judgment and other similar issues. Neither candidate had a monopoly on passionate supporters.

Fourth, Sara Palin, not surprisingly received some of the most high octane letters - both positive and negative.

Fifth, surprisingly, there was not a signle letter that was mainly about Joe Biden. In terms of ‘being mentioned’, Palin trumped Biden by more than 2 to 1.