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

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:

• How to Write Letters to the Editor that Really Get Attention

• https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/direct-action/letters-to-editor/main

• Tips on Writing a Letter to the Editor | American Civil Liberties Union

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