One of the reasons for writing letters is the pleasure that comes with being answered.
Not all replies are pleasant, of course. I recently had a robust exchange with a Cabinet minister whom I admire a good deal, and he suggested that I am doing a pretty awful job of editing this newspaper. It stung a bit, but what would really have hurt is no reply at all.
So I was very pleased that so many of our Cape readers — and quite a few from elsewhere — responded to my missive a fortnight ago about the Mail & Guardian’s relatively slack sales performance on the southern littoral.
It was not in any way a scientific survey. Only people who really care about the paper, for good or ill, were likely to answer, and those who have utterly given up would not have seen it at all.
But some clear themes emerged. Perhaps the most encouraging is that quite a few of the replies began something like this: ”Your question — what are we doing wrong — provoked a heated discussion over the braai on Sunday”, before going on to twist the knife about my relocation to Johannesburg with remarks about kreef just hauled from the sea, and the grassy tang of the new 2009 Sauvignon Blanc.
More pertinently, however, some of you are unhappy about distribution: either you struggle to find the paper in stores away from the city centre and the southern suburbs, or you have had difficulties with home delivery.
I get very cross when I hear that subscribers are frustrated with the M&G. They have placed considerable trust in us, not only to deliver a consistently good read, but also simply to deliver the newspaper. When we cock it up and fail to offer remedies, we are throwing that trust back in their faces.
I know that our circulation department has been working hard on these issues and, while we are far from perfection, I think we are getting steadily better. If we let you down and fail to fix it, please let me know.
Newsstand distribution is more complicated. Our distribution is handled by a relatively small company, which we co-own. That means we are no longer in the untenable position of being distributed by our competitors at the big media houses. It also means that we have to be careful, and clever, about where we send bundles of the newspaper. My gut feeling is that we are being careful, but not clever enough.
One reader, for example, writes how he sends someone to Pinelands to buy his copy, because none is available beyond Vanguard Drive. Others write of the struggle to find a copy of the M&G in rural and coastal towns.
Cape Town has changed and I am not sure we have kept up. In the northern suburbs, in Parklands, in some township areas and in the residential areas of the Winelands is a readership that, your letters indicate, we often fail to reach.
A touchier subject by far, but one that comes up in almost every reply, is the character of the Cape, and variations on the Chinese theme of ”the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away”. The province, many of you argued, is increasingly remote from the national concerns that are the focus of the M&G.
We cover the ANC obsessively, several remarked, but the Cape is run by the Democratic Alliance. Stories of Luthuli House intrigue, epic corruption, empowerment and identity politics feel like a faint, uncomfortable pressure from a foreign sphere, rather than matters of vital concern.
A number of these responses made it clear that while some Capetonians may feel that way, others proudly identify with national concerns and see the M&G as a way to remain in touch with larger, less parochial debates.
It seems to me that in the space between these two sides of the same coin should be better, more focused reporting from the Cape that does not try to compete with the local dailies and that strenuously avoids being a warmed-over digest of coastal news for inland readers. After all, how things work, or don’t, in the only province and large city not controlled by the ANC matters to everyone in the country.
The other thing many of you asked for is more levity, more beautiful writing and better design. Whether this is a concern only in the Cape, with its legion of communications and lifestyle professionals, I don’t know, but I couldn’t agree more.
We are trying, indeed we are trying hard, and I think the early signs of progress are there in fresher layout and a bit more variety. I hope some of that is in evidence in this week’s paper. The results will show more strongly in the new year.
The short answer is that a better national paper will do better in the Cape and attention to advice from the deepest south will help us to do better everywhere.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in. I am trying to reply to each email personally, but it does take a while. Please regard this as a promise to answer more fully in the pages of the paper each week and as a request to hold us — and me personally — responsible if the promise isn’t kept.
Have a great holiday, and if you see me in a GP-registered car on Kloofnek Road some time, try not to hoot.