This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

If you were to go up to the eighth floor of the Tribune Building, you would find Malin Foster figuratively hip-deep in e-mail and snail-mail letters for the Public Forum. Foster, a veteran Utah journalist, is the man who picks and edits the letters that appear every day on The Tribune's editorial page.

Lucky, lucky man.

This week he is in the midst of what he calls "Michael Moore II."

He has dug through a mountain of letters on Moore's planned appearance at Utah Valley State College already. In fact, he had just come up for air when wealthy Orem resident Kay Anderson, the father of a student at UVSC, held up a check for $25,000 last week and offered to donate that to the student activities fund if student leaders would cancel Moore's invitation.

That gesture made great TV and great newspaper photographs, but it rubbed many Tribune readers the wrong way, according to Foster.

"The reaction in letters has been very, very strongly anti-Anderson," Foster said.

As of Thursday, Foster had waded through about three dozen letters on the topic and "not one of them supported Anderson."

What this means, according to Foster, is that the Public Forum will contain lots of missives against Anderson's gesture and probably few or none supporting his offer.

That's not because Foster or anyone else at The Tribune won't run pro-Anderson letters; it's because The Tribune does not receive pro-Anderson letters. A similar reaction by letter writers can be counted on every time an issue with two distinct political sides is discussed in the news, Foster said.

And this response to politically weighted issues in such a heavily Republican state is predictable, Foster said. "When the political demographics of a state run heavily to one side, then the other side is very vocal."

Foster made his way through the first round of Michael Moore letters right after the school announced the documentary filmmaker would speak at the school. The first round tended to be letters from readers who supported the spirit and the right of students who decided Moore would be an appropriate speaker during the presidential election season.

Such floods of letters may be predicable, Foster said, but seldom do they come in the volume generated by this Moore flap.

And these letters differ from the large volumes of letters generated by political or other influence groups hoping to change public policy or skew election results. Foster and the rest of the editorial-writing department are pretty good at spotting those. "They become prevalent enough - and the language is often repetitive enough - that we recognize them," Foster said.

"Sometimes you'll read six letters and four of them say the same thing."

Some of the structure and wording of such letters can be downloaded from partisan Web sites on the Internet, Foster said. The topics of such letters tend to be U.S. foreign policy, gay marriage and civil rights.

These latest letters supporting Moore and UVSC and opposing Anderson's gesture are original, passionate and varied in style, Foster said.

During the last several weeks, the most prevalent topics for letters have been Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman, Michael Moore and Sean Hannity, Foster said.

Letters to the editor are chosen on the basis of topic, cogency of thought, conciseness (250 words or less) and point of view. Foster works to eliminate letters that are simply ad hominem attacks on other letter writers.

Letters to the editor may be submitted by mail, e-mail or fax. The fax number is 801-257-8525; the e-mail address is //letters@sltrib.com">http://letters@sltrib.com and the snail mail address is Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110.

16

Readers sick of Michael Moore coverage.

9

Readers who think The Tribune leans to the left.

21

Readers who think BYU football gets more coverage than the Utes.

15

Readers who complain they cannot get letters to the editor printed.