I've been getting letters about letters. The public editor regularly receives complaints from readers who say they can't get their letters to the editor published in The News & Observer. What's the secret code, they ask, that allows you to have your letter printed in The People's Forum, as the letters page is called?

"I'm just trying to find out who picks what articles go into the People's Forum because I send a lot and they seem like they never get in there," said reader John Bartimac of Raleigh. "But then again, I walk straight, I don't lean to the left. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I should get my left leg shorter than my right leg."

"I mistakenly assumed that The People's Forum published opposing viewpoints when both were submitted on a given issue," wrote reader Mary Williford of Cary, who submitted a response to letters published in The People's Forum. "I expect a good, balanced newspaper to publish both sides of an issue. Is that asking too much?"

Lynnie Sullivan of Holly Springs saw several letters printed in response to an editorial, but not hers. "Therefore, I conclude that my opinion was unworthy of timely display, and I wondered why. ... How are opinions determined to be not ready for prime time?"

Fair questions, all. I'll introduce you to the paper's opinion gatekeeper in a moment, to let him supply answers. But first a little background on The People's Forum. The N&O last year received more than 14,000 letters to the editor, and 3,400 were published. Maybe you'll be as surprised as I am to learn that those numbers are up from about 6,300 in 1995, with 2,700 published. The Forum is on pace to set a new record this year. And those numbers don't count the separate communications published each week in the Q section and sports section, which may add another 15 a week.

The letters are some of the best reading in the paper -- informative, well-reasoned, often clever, sometimes provocative. Those who have followed the stream of letters launched by Russell Capps' Sept. 17 letter suggesting that Hurricane Katrina was God's visitation upon New Orleans for its sinful ways can testify to that. (In case you missed it: "Will we come to realize that the groanings of the earth are God's reminders of His calling of mankind to return to Him through repentance before it is eternally too late?")

Steve Ford, The N&O's editorial page editor, attributes the surge in letters since the mid-1990s in part to the growth of e-mail, which allows readers to respond quickly to an article or editorial. But the growth also is fed, he says, by the letters themselves, which usually make grade-A reading. "I think publishing high-quality letters breeds high-quality letter submissions," he said.

Charged with the task of sorting through this ever-growing cascade of reader polemic is Allen Torrey, who wears the dual hats of People's Forum editor and op-ed editor. I'll let him tell you, from an e-mail to me, how he makes the selections:

"In general, I try to give the highest priorities to letters from people who believe they have been wronged by the paper, either in a news story or opinion piece; letters that disagree with our editorials; letters that comment directly on recent articles in the paper; and letters that are short and bright, no matter their subject or view. Letters that take the form of essays or are on the long side or comment on, for example, TV shows or magazine articles rank low on the priority scale and have a hard time seeing print."

Other kinds of letters that don't make it: anonymous or form letters, copies of letters to a third party, letters that are part of an obviously orchestrated campaign on behalf of a political candidate or cause. Writers are limited to one published letter every 30 days. The normal length limit is 250 words. See the note on the page next door for instructions on how to submit a letter.

In response to Williford's question, Torrey does try to run letters from opposing sides of the same topic. Yes, he does edit letters for length and to meet standards such as decency and legality. A reader got mad recently when the paper wouldn't let him, in a letter, say that a police officer should be charged with homicide. The N&O in its news stories doesn't accuse people of crimes before they've been charged, and it wouldn't do so in readers' letters, either. The paper is liable, legally, for what it prints regardless of whose pen it came from.

It's useful to state, I think, why a newspaper even has letters to the editor. The letters pages are the only place in the printed edition where you talk to us, as well as to other readers. Everywhere else in the paper, we talk to you. One-way communication is becoming increasingly anachronistic in this interactive world, and it makes The People's Forum that much more valuable a piece of real estate.

And a more exclusive club. Ten years ago, The N&O published 43 percent of the letters it received. Last year, the rate was 25 percent. Because of the growth in the number of letters submitted, it has become a venue that is increasingly difficult for readers to access -- a concern that I detect in the frustration of readers who don't make the cut. The paper doesn't, unfortunately, acknowledge the letters it receives because of the volume, and rejectees typically receive no explanation. That's not good for reader relations.

I see the letters as a valuable franchise of The News & Observer and those not printed as a wasted resource. Why throw away 10,000 reader communications a year? There's a lot of gold in those letters (there's a lot of dross, too). The N&O is limited in its amount of newspaper space to print letters, but there's no limit to the amount of Web space where letters could be published online. The N&O has an online edition, www.newsobserver.com. Why not publish the letter overwash online?

There are reasons why that would be a logistical challenge. Some letters should not be published because they are libelous, obscene or wrong on the facts. And how do you perform an Allen Torrey-style, surgical-precision edit on the volume of letter overflow?

I don't have easy answers to those challenges. But those are our problems, not the readers', and it seems to me could be overcome.

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