Sometimes, you do not need a megaphone at all. Sometimes a cartoonist who helps shape the national conversation sees the point you are making and signals it for you.
Cathy Wilcox read my letter and chose to share it. I value that decision.
This post looks at how arguments travel once they enter public institutions.
It sets out my thinking on influence, media, and leadership under scrutiny.
I wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald this week.
For the first time.
And it was published AND Cathy Wilcox tweeted it with this comment.
As ever the letter writers bring the wisdom
Within three hours, around 90 people had retweeted it and close to 300 had liked it. I am not on Twitter, that decision dates back to Elon Musk buying the platform. I only know because someone sent me a screenshot.
The Herald is a national paper. Along with The Age, it continues to play a significant role in setting the public frame. What appears there travels well beyond the page.
I have spent enough time around local government to see how power reacts to scrutiny. When I was reporting on council matters, council publicly refuted my articles on their website . They lodged complaints with the Press Council. It was deliberate, and it wore me down.
Stepping away from that role changed the method, not the issues.
Writing a letter imposes a different discipline. You make the argument, then you step back. The words have to stand on their own.
Letters to the Editor signal where the public temperature is sitting. They show which language is beginning to stick and where the fault lines are forming.
Advocacy through media is often confused with volume. Say it everywhere. Say it repeatedly. That confuses exposure with influence.
What counts is placement, timing, and less is more wisdom.
Say less. Place it better.
A blog gives room to think. Facebook meets people where they already are. A letter to a national paper places an argument inside an institution that shapes public conversation.
You don’t need to say everything. You need to say one thing well, in the right place, and leave it there
That’s strategy.
Old media still matters. It forces clarity, limits excess, and leaves a public record that can’t be edited away.
For anyone thinking about advocacy, the question isn’t where can I speak, but where does this argument belong.
And sometimes, you do not need a megaphone at all. Sometimes a cartoonist who helps shape the national conversation sees the point you are making and signals it for you.
Excellent Lynne
🙏