To the Editor:

One subscribes to a newspaper for any of several reasons: to follow the local news, to support the fading business of print journalism, to solve the puzzles, or to enjoy the features and comics. A retired journalist, I turn first to your letters because they keep me alert to the types of minds we live among during our spring and summer residences in Locke’s Mills, and they also keep our First Amendment alive and kicking.

A wonderful example of this journalistic service appeared in your pages back on August 27, and I’m late in celebrating because we’re only recently back in Pennsylvania where you send us the Citizen.

A letter in that issue, “Doing the Work,” adopted a consistent theme, used the familiar back-and-forth comparative-contrast rhetorical strategy, relied on an inventive and accurate vocabulary, and argued — at engaging length — a partisan political position, the precise purpose of such letters.

That letter, by a Fred Call, easily justified the price of the paper. It happens that Mr. Call’s letter disdained the current president, but had he argued the opposite position as skillfully, I would have had equal admiration. It seems to me first that a carefully planed and adroitly executed rhetorical strategy signals reliable judgement, and second that a marvelous prose stylist lurks up there in Newry.

John Swinton

State College, PA

Copy the Story Link