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Apr052008

A Few Tips On Getting Your Letter Published

Filed under Uncategorized by nick pappas at 4:12 pm

Do you ever wonder why some letters to the editor are published and others are not? Or which ones end up jumping to the front of the line? Or why some have about as much chance of being published as your weekly grocery list?

Well, if you do, I don’t blame you.

Before I started this job, I wondered about that, too.

Now that I’ve been making these decisions on a daily basis for the last seven months, I thought it might be helpful to offer some insight into why some letters get published and others don’t.

Before I do, however, let me say this: The selection of letters for publication is more art than science. No two editorial page editors are alike, so what I might find interesting and what one of my colleagues at another paper might find interesting could very well be two different things.

Unless you subscribe to a strict first-come, first-served policy – which I do not, by the way – there can be plenty of room for second-guessing.

So what can you do to enhance the chances of getting your letter published?

First, no matter what you are writing about, include your full name, home address and a telephone number. If our editorial assistants can’t reach you by phone to verify that you are indeed the author of the letter, then it isn’t going to run no matter how good it is.

Keeping your letters to a maximum of between 350 and 400 words helps, too. While we publish letters shorter or longer, your odds go up dramatically if you are not sending us 1,000-word manifestos on your favorite topic.

With that out of the way, I’m going to break down letters into two general categories: letters that get a higher priority and letters that get a lower priority. There are few absolutes in this business, so other than nothing libelous, insulting or patently offensive, it probably isn’t necessary to add a third “don’t even bother” list.

Here is a list of what I would consider high-priority letters:

  • Letters written by local people about local issues; the timelier, the better.
  • Letters written by local people about stories, photos, editorials, cartoons, etc., that appeared in The Telegraph.
  • Letters written by local people praising us for doing a swell job.
  • Letters written by local people criticizing us for doing a lousy job.
  • Letters written by local people about statewide issues.
  • Letters written by local people about national issues.
  •  Letters written by local people about international issues. 

(If you noted any redundancies in these points, it was intentional. Namely, as a community newspaper, we give greater priority to letters written by individuals who live in our circulation area.)

Conversely, here is a list of letter types that get a lower priority:

  • Letters written by winning and losing candidates in local elections for the purpose of thanking voters who supported them. (So many candidates; so little space.)
  • Letters written by local people announcing their candidacies for public office – unless we make a formal decision to encourage them, as we did in last year’s Nashua elections. (If you are in a contested race, we’ll be doing a story about you on our news pages.)
  • Letters written by out-of-area people about state, national or international issues. (A California man praising/condemning some statement or action by the Bush administration, for example.)
  • Letters written by out-of-area people advocating for or against state or national candidates for office. (Example: A North Conway woman explaining why we must vote for John E. Sununu or Jeanne Shaheen for U.S. Senate this fall.)
  • Open letters to public officials. (Just write what you want to say as if you were writing for your fellow readers.)
  • Form letters – that is, similar letters generated through a particular organization, political or otherwise. While we do not have a strict exclusivity policy here for letters – at least not yet – any hint that a letter is part of an orchestrated campaign is a surefire way to get it relegated to the bottom of the heap.

Again, neither of these lists is intended to be all encompassing; given more time and space, I certainly could come up with a lot more.

But since we generally receive more letters than we can publish in a timely fashion, I wanted to at least offer these tips on how to increase the odds of getting your letters published in The Telegraph.

So what do you think: Fair? Unfair? Reasonable? Unreasonable?

As always, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions I may have not addressed here or if you want to quibble with my priority lists.

Like I said, the letter selection process is more art than science.

Nick Pappas is editorial page editor at The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6505 or npappas@nashuatelegraph.com.

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