Les cartes al director són cartes privades

Abstract

This article attempts to give the lie to one of the funda mental prejudices held about the letters to the editor throughout the decades in the manuals of journalism. This misperception states that the letters to the editor are public letters, given that they are published. The letters to the editor are, from the point of view of historical analy sis and, above all, from the analysis of the letter as a text, private letters, not public ones. This is a type of private letter, which, through their use by the figure of the editor of a newspaper, are brought to the eyes of the public. The importance of this perspective lies in the degree of truth contained in the letters to the editor, which makes them a journalistic piece of the first order, the fruit of the par ticipation of readers in newspapers and magazines. The letters form small storerooms of truth.