Writing a Letter to the Editor: Do's and Don'ts

It was 1972 and I was reading words on the Editorial page of the Arizona Republic that took President Nixon to task for doing a "disgraceful job" of running America. I was ecstatic to see the words there for one main reason-they were my words and this was my first published letter to the editor.

Since that eventful day, I have had literally hundreds of letters printed in newspapers across the country from The Los Angeles Times to the Chicago Sun-Times. I even had one show up in Sports Illustrated. Most of the time I write political commentary in these letters, but that is not always the case. There was a period of about a year where I did battle, on the Editorial page of my hometown paper, with a huge waste management firm who wanted to place a 50 year dump less than one mile away from a group of homes where over 2,000 men, women, and children lived. That battle garnered me quite a bit of notoriety especially when the waste management firm spent approximately $3,000 to take out an advertisement in an attempt to debunk one of my letters. I guess I got their attention.

But I do not write letters to the editor just to see my name in print; I write fiction for that purpose. No, I write because I have something to say, I want the public to hear it, and I think that having my letters printed in the Editorial pages of our country's newspapers is still the best place to speak my mind (sorry bloggers). I have talked to many editors over the years and they all tell me that the Editorial page is the most read part of their newspaper or magazine. So they encourage people to write, they want your letters.

From talking to them and from my own experience, I have discovered that there are ways to get virtually anything you send to an editor accepted for publication.

What follows is a list of dos and don'ts that will help you get your opinion out there. I hope these tips assist you since an opinion is a terrible thing to waste. If you have one, it means you have been thinking and your contemplations have moved you to write. Thinking is always a great thing to do, more people should partake of the practice-especially politicians.

The Don'ts