I was the letters and community editor at The Washington Post when the paper made the decision not to endorse in last year’s presidential election. And I did something that, in retrospect, turned out to be kind of crazy: I promised readers I would personally read every letter they sent in about that development. They took me up on it, and I spent six months reading all 21,000 emails people (including my mother!) sent in. That process, and being letters editor more broadly, taught me a lot about The Post, and about America.

I’m grateful to the great people at NOTUS for giving me a chance to write about the experience and what I learned from it: