Assignment One: Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor:

Super Bowl Tax
Regarding “Tax funds called key to 2012 Super Bowl”, Feb. 5: Organizers trying to get another Super Bowl in Arizona want taxpayer dollars to help support the massive cost of running the Super Bowl. The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee and other leaders want public dollars to finance the bulk of the cost. I have no problem with taxpayers supporting some of the cost, but to ask them to support the majority of the cost is outrageous. This years Host Committee spent about 17 million dollars to put on the weeklong event. Most of that money came from private sector. 17 million dollars is a lot of money to raise for one event, but it is wrong to ask taxpayers to support the bulk of the cost for an event that is considered a luxury by most cities.

The Super Bowl can be considered the biggest game in of all sports. Where is all the money going that the Super Bowl is supposed bring in though? Projections have been made that the Super Bowl created more than 400 million dollars in spending. Organizers are trying to tell me that they can’t find money to use from that figure? With the thousands that come to see the Super Bowl, organizers should be able to fund the fundraising they need. The private sectors and the state raised enough money this year, why can’t they do it again?

What about the NFL too? The NFL is a multimillion dollar organization and the most popular professional sport in this country. The NFL should be able to help out host cities by fronting some of the costs for their own event. Asking taxpayers to help pay for the Super Bowl turns a great event into something most people may not want back now.

Casey O’Neill
Ahwatukee



Reflection:

With the Super Bowl fresh in my mind, I thought it would be a good idea to write my letter to the editor on the impact that it had on the state of Arizona. As I was browsing through the Arizona Republic, an article about taxpayers and the Super Bowl caught my eye. I knew that I had finally found the perfect article to write about when I saw it. Taxes are something that everyone dislikes. So, when this article stated that officials wanted taxpayer money as they try to secure another Super Bowl, I thought that it was a little outrageous. My point was that no one wants to pay tax dollars an event that is supposed to be a bonus, or a luxury to the city and state.
Before I started to write my letter to the editor, I had considered the genre of the letters that are written to the Arizona Republic. Most of the letters written to the Arizona Republic dealt with politics, the government, or local issues. My letter deals with a local government issue because of the taxes, so it fits the genre perfectly. Next I looked at the average length of the letters to the editor in the Arizona Republic. The letters were anywhere from 50 words, to just over 300, with most being around 200. My letter is 298 words, just barely fitting the requirements. After considering these two things, I needed to take a look at the audience that I was writing to. First is the editor of the paper. The Arizona Republic tends to have a slight tilt toward the conservative side. I needed to take this into account, along with the fact that the readers of the Arizona Republic are going to be fairly up to date and educated on events. With these points in mind, I was ready to start writing my letter.
I felt that credibility would be one of my most important tools in writing this letter. Letting my audience know that I am educated on the topic will allow them to take my opinion seriously and consider all of arguments. The first way that I established my credibility was by stating the name of the article that I was referring to in my letter. This lets my audience know that I have read the article in question, and that I am at least educated on the situation. Another way that I established credibility for my self was by using facts. Since my letter is about the cost of the Super Bowl, using that figure was a critical part of my argument. This stat also educates the reader on the topic, allowing them to ponder on my argument longer. One thing that I didn’t get to mention, due to the word count, was that I am a taxpayer myself. I felt that this would have further built my credibility, but it was something that I could survive without.
In persuasive writing there are three audiences; resistant, neutral, and sympathetic. I felt that I did a good job in appealing to all three audiences in my letter. I wanted to be aggressive in my tone, but I had to make sure that I didn’t alienate the resistant audience. To do this I conceded the fact that taxpayers should help pay for the Super Bowl a little bit. I wanted to show the resistant audience that I care about the struggles that the Host Committee had raising the money. I also stated how fundraising 17 million dollars can be tough to do. By conceding a little on these two issues, I should have appeased the resistant audience enough to allow them to consider what I was saying. To capture the sympathetic audience, I wanted to use raw emotion, or pathos. As my letter goes along, it progressively gets angrier and angrier. By doing this I am, in a sense, trying to round up my troops, get them excited to fight for my cause. I was hoping that my credibility would convince the neutral audience. I presented facts and appealed to both sides of the issue, insuring that that would not be put off either way.
My tone in this letter is very important. I start off with a serious tone in order not to offend any audience right off the bat. After I have presented some of my argument, I let some emotion start to appear in hopes of beginning to convince the reader that my view is the proper one. As I get to the end of my letter, I get angrier about the fact that we have to pay taxes to host the Super Bowl. I attack the deep pocketed NFL in hopes of convincing the reader that the money is out there for the taking. Most importantly, my tone fits the publication, being both serious and emotional. I read many letters in the Arizona Republic that were both serious and emotional on their specific topics.
Writing on a subject that I find interesting and that I enjoy, really helped me to write a successful letter. I believe that my letter would have the possibility of getting published if I had sent it to the Arizona Republic in the days after the article was printed. As I was looking through the Republic’s letters, I noticed that most of them were about articles written the day before. Sending it in a week after the article was printed will probably hurt my chances, but with any luck, it could get published.