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Something I personally don't do enough of is trying and turning insight into action. Here is the key insight in this diary:
In other words, only when a statement or discourse is in direct contradiction with itself and immediate reality can we reach the guys at the other side of our enlightenment narrative/mythology. But we have to reach them, otherwise, they will forget.
and it occurred to me today that this has an immediate application to LTE writing.

Often, LTEs are simple statements of disagreement with a published piece, followed by a statement of the LTE writer's pet theory. That is ineffective. The best LTEs are the ones that concisely expose a contradiction in the narrative of the article they respond to. If that can be used as a cue to present an alternative narrative, so much the better, but it is the exposed contradiction that makes the alternative narrative more convincing.

So our LTE writing should be focused on exposing internal contradictions in the prevailing narrative.

Now, should we be targeting the opposition's media, or our own side's? In other words, is it best to sow uncertainty and doubt among the consumers of right-wing media, so as to weaken their allegiance to the cause, or else to protecting a friendly audience from what we think are dangerous narratives?

In the case at hand, the readers at publico.es, at least the ones that commented on the news item that kcurie is quoting, either caught on to the inherent contradiction or at least saw that the narrative didn't match their experience. Therefore an LTE to publico.es might not have been very effective in terms of changing readers' opinions. Maybe it would have been more effective to track down the same piece in Expansion or Cinco Dias (Spain's financial newspapers) or the right-wing press (ABC, El Mundo), or even El Pais (the largest newspaper in the country and increasingly finance-friendly despite its left credentials).

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:05:19 PM EST
Short LTE should point out contradictions.. I still recall Helen letter abut the British gas market.. who doesn't?

Op-Ed , on the other hand should be a anrrative from the start.. taking shots at contradictions of teh opposite narrative.

Now, we need a media outreach.. :)

And El Pais would eb the target newspaper.. or El Mundo... Razon .. I doubt it...

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:21:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Right, Helen's letter is one of the best we've had.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:25:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, and I think it was mostly because of that one killer sentence.

For most audiences you have to be able to make your point in a single sentence. Everything else in the op-ed is the carrier, but the maximum impact comes from that one sound-bite sized sentence of payload.

Kos is actually good at this - most of his front page comments look like throw-aways, but in fact they're very distilled one-two punches nailing a point or two.

One one I'm working on at the moment includes some talky fluff with comments from Greenspan and others, and a 'So why is it that economists are so very bad at managing money?'

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 05:52:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe I need to start reading El Pais again... ugh.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:27:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Theya re the group of people more open to our arguments which can fall into other narratives...

El Mundo would be less receptive but still they like to think themselves as centrists and rationalists...

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 02:38:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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