Letter to the Editor (LTE) tips from Indivisible-10

Owned by Julia Leon, created
Jan 25, 2022
2 min read

 

 

Kudos to Peggy and Gina for sharing their expertise here!



Why write LTEs?

  • Gets other people to start speaking up - once people see you getting published, they’ll feel motivated to write, too

  • If you mention elected officials by name, they will see the LTE since they are notified (by their staff) of any times their names appear in the media

  • LTEs let others in your area who agree with you know that they are not alone



Writing Strong Letters

  • Consider before writing:

    • What’s your purpose with the letter?

    • Who is your audience?

    • What do you want the reader to do -- take action? Learn something?

    • Note: papers are often reluctant to publish letters endorsing candidates

  • The contents of the letter:

    • Remember, it’s an opinion piece more than a data piece

    • Pick one topic to focus on; you usually only have 200-250 words

    • Talk about what the topic means to you + locally

    • Share a personal story if you can; those are more powerful



To submit:

  • Consider submitting your letter to multiple papers; it’s okay to have your letter show up in more than one paper. Note: this is not always the case for op-eds

  • Mostly, you’ll want to submit to a paper(s) in your area, especially those you subscribe to

  • Every paper has different rules around word counts and how to submit - find this info from the paper or their website directly, if you can 

  • Some papers will only publish if you live in the area

  • If you get your LTE published, send it to your legislator/MoC to let them know you write it and care about that issue.

    • AND ask others in your group to send it to your legislator/MoC and say “I am a constituent and I agree with this constituent who got this LTE published”



General advice:

  • Write when motivated

  • Keep language simple - these are everyday people in your community who will be reading these in the paper

  • Save well-written pieces and facts about topics you care about; that way, when you’re ready to write, you have the info and inspiration to fall back on

  • Find a partner and share your letters for review.  A friend can proofread, help you get your wordage down to 250 words if you’re stuck, or simply give you feedback on whether you are being too stringent (or too soft)

  • Get multiple people to submit letters on the same topic - makes it more likely it’ll get published because the Editors will notice that a lot of readers are writing in about that topic

  • Notice what papers your legislators are featured in themselves, and write to those papers -- you know they follow that outlet and therefore are more likely to see what you write

  • If you can, respond to something recently published in the paper you’re submitting the LTE to - you’re more likely to get published if you can do so. You can say “I was excited to see X discussed in Y article” or “I was horrified when I read Y article”



Other resources:



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