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Letters to the Editor
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The Journal
Editor misjudged her customers
From Mrs H. J. Brown, MRPharmS
What are we to do with our editor? A letter last week (PJ, 4 December,
p816) questioned her tact. In the Leading
article of the same issue (p802)
she has done it again, and more.
The members about whom the article was written are those who are considering
resigning from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society as a result of proposed
changes to the Register. I guess the intention was to persuade those
members to not resign. I say “guess” because I am not really
sure. Was it maybe just an unproductive, bombastic, editorial moan? If
the latter, it is usual to put it in a drawer for 24 hours, reread it,
throw it in a rubbish bin, and rewrite. I doubt if this article persuaded
anyone not to resign, and may have pushed undecided members to say: “It
is time to leave this lot”.
Anything aimed at a “customer” requires market research.
You know who your customer is, know your product, and decide how to put
the two together. This is where our editor got it wrong this week. Most
of the members in the group identified as “customers” are
those with low or no income. If the aim of the article is to “persuade”,
do not:
· Include information irrelevant to that customer, eg, cost of cars,
holidays, shows
· Insult your customer, eg “fees have been subsidised” — those
now being “subsidised” were in the past subsidising others,
a situation accepted in many areas of life by everyone who expects to
get old one day
· Use emotive words such as “resent” and “threat” (I
especially object to the use of the word “threat”. Never
in any letter on this subject in The Journal have I ever seen this word
used by a member. Those considering resigning are doing so with disappointment
and unhappiness at the sad end to a career and profession of which they
were duly proud. Some will feel anger, but that does not equate to “threat”.)
This article was not an example of successful persuasion.
Dear editor, where were your spoonfuls of sugar? Your medicine choked
us, it needs reformulating, your research and development is non-existent,
your sales are down this week, and I predict your customer numbers will
be down shortly. Please ask Santa to give you a rubbish bin for Christmas.
Helen J. Brown
Sunderland
Are letters printed as written?
From Mr A. E. J. Sterry, MRPharmS
The editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal may be a competent journalist
(PJ, 4 December, p816). I do, however, believe that members of our Society
and readers of the PJ in general have a right to know whether they are
reading exactly the words that were originally written in these letters
pages or whether they are reading a sanitised or altered version “helped” by
the editorial team. I acknowledge the right of the editor to amend letters
but I ask that when any such amendment is made a symbol (*) is printed
to show that an amendment has taken place. Does this concern anyone else?
Alan E. J. Sterry
Bristol
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Letters are primarily edited to make them legal, decent and truthful.
A handful are badly drafted, ungrammatical and misspelt but we do our
best to preserve the intent of the letter. Major changes are only made
with the writers’ agreement. When they are unable to accept the
changes they withdraw their letters. A system of (*) without detailed
explanation would not improve communication of writers’ messages.
— EDITOR
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal