How to send a letter to your local newspaper

1 find your paper
2 find an email for sending your letter to
3 write a cover letter for your letter-to-the-editor (LTE)
4 include your LTE

find your paper

Every county has a “legal organ” for the purpose of publishing public notices. Some counties are served by multiple newspapers. Start your google search, for example, with “appling county newspapers”. Your best results will be at the top of the list. Take note that some newspapers are currently publishing. Almost all viable newspapers will have a web site.

Alternatively, if you are organizing an LTE program, subscribe to the Georgia Press Association ($45) and receive a catalog of most established papers.

find an email for sending your letter to

Click into the website for your paper. You can find an email to send your letter to by looking for:

“contact us”, “about us”, “staff”, “submit” in the top and or the bottom of the home page.

It is better to send your letter to a generic email address than to an individual (e.g. letters@newspaper.com instead of “john.smith@newspaper.com”)

I prefer sending letters by email for tracking reasons, however some papers will only accept letters through a form. In that case copy and paste your letter into the form.

write a cover letter for your letter-to-the-editor (LTE)

At a minimum, include in your cover letter your name, address, telephone number with your request to publish your letter. Adding a more thoughtful message to highlight the reason your letter is important and why you are writing personally will help get your letter published. If you are sending a letter to a newspaper outside of your home residence then explain what connection you have to the newspaper’s county if any (e.g. I visit there, I went to school there, my best friend lives there, etc.)

include your LTE

Copy and paste your LTE directly in your email. Attachments are sometimes ignored due to virus risks.