Advanced Writing: Public Relations
Exercise: letter to the editor

Your boss asks you to write a letter to the editor explaining your firm's viewpoint on a controversial issue. As communications officer, you know that letters to the editor have to be kept short and punchy, not more than a few grafs. As the company director, George Santé, drones on, you think of a way to make this letter to the editor stand out by making a succinct point.

Here's what Santé, director of Pink Pill Pharmaceuticals, Bismarck, N.D., tells you:

"Well, Bush’s new health plan is out, and we're out of joint about it. I tell ya, whatever happened to those wonderful Clinton days? I bought my yacht and my condo in Scottsdale in the great '90s, and now I can hardly afford the green fees down there. Anyway, see, the local newspaper, that's the Bismarck Bark, you know, has come out with an editorial supporting Bush’s health care plan. But we have a bone to pick with that plan, our firm. The thing is, any attempt to control the profits of pharmaceutical companies will cut way down on our research.

"As you know, we gotta do research, test our products, before we can put them on the market. Heck, if we don't, and some Aunt Mabel has a bad reaction, slap, we've got a big lawsuit on our hands. But that's not all! Government regs require us to do a lotta research, testing, on our new drugs before we put 'em out. Gotta follow all kinds of government mandates, and the paperwork, geez! We could improve this country's health just by eliminating all those federal forms, letting a few more trees live.

"So I know a lot of new medications are costly. But that's why--the government regulations, and our own need to be very careful about the side effects and long-term effects of drugs before putting them out on the market. It's all that research that costs. And yet, the administration suggests drug companies need federal price regulation. Well, how do we deal with that stuff, and still stay in business? I don't know what's going to happen. You need to tell the public about this. Write a letter to the editor. And go ahead, sign my name to it. Do it quick, before it starts to rain. I gotta get back on the links."

(Note: begin your letter with today's date, and "To the Editor:")