Publishing Letters During Election Season
A Drop of Ink
Reed Anfinson, Publisher
National, state, and local elections are less than two months away, and political campaigns are ramping up their efforts to gain attention. Supporters of candidates are becoming more involved, going door-to-door with pamphlets about their candidate of choice, and talking with people they meet.
For the most part, we are the best source of local election information. We publish a voters guide that outlines the reasons for running and goals of candidates running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, sheriff, and county attorney. In some counties, the auditor is also on the ballot.
We will also publish stories about candidates running for the state legislature, state administrative offices, and for Congress.
Political campaigns’ publicity plans are discouraging for newspapers. They see us as essential for getting out free information through news releases and letters but spend their advertising money elsewhere. Individuals who support or oppose candidates also are reaching out to newspapers with letters to the editor.
Newspapers around the country have letters-to-the-editor policies during the political season that limit what they accept. Our policies are:
- We won’t print letters that attack candidates or question their character or allege wrongdoing. That’s advertising.
- We don’t print letters submitted to other publications, or those written by campaigns, or organizations representing political campaigns or candidates – that’s advertising.
- Letters that appear to be mass-produced, with slight changes, and submitted to multiple publications will not be accepted.
- Letters submitted by Political Action Committees (PACs), advocacy groups, or public relations firms on behalf of a reader are rejected.
- Anyone submitting a letter with a fake identity will be banned from letter publication.
- Letters with obvious copy-and-paste sections from other sources will not be published.
- We will accept letters that address a school levy, or a state ballot measure. Neither involves individuals, but both affect quality of life in our community and the quality of education our schools provide. If you write, make sure your facts are right.
- We will also accept letters that deal with concerns about general topics like climate change, the national debt, or AI’s impact on jobs, but they can’t include an endorsement of a candidate.
As we consider publishing the letters we receive, here are a few other rules that we apply:
- We want letters from local writers with our subscribers given preference when several letters are on the same subject in the same week. We get letters from far and wide. They come from outside this region and even other states. Letters that are not local or not from subscribers are unlikely to get printed.
- All letters must be signed with an address. They must also include a phone number so we can verify the sender’s identity. We will not publish the address or phone number. We only identify the town where the letter writer lives on the published letter.
- We ask that writers know the facts of what they are writing about. Rumors and half-truths are not the stuff on which letters should be based. Letters that contain provably false information will not be printed.
- Letters should be no more than 350 words. State clearly and precisely your point or points.
- We will carry one letter per person per month unless the person is the direct subject of a letter.
- No letters will be accepted in the week before an election unless it is in response to a direct assertion made by a previous writer. Only a response to the previous letter will be allowed – no new points can be raised.
- We don’t print letters that attack individuals. You can challenge a belief or a way of life that you don’t agree with, but you can’t attack the individual whose lifestyle you disagree with or find offensive.
- Language that threatens harm or incites action to harm an individual or group is hate speech, and we don’t print it. We won’t accept letters that demean others.
- Letters generated by an artificial intelligence program will not be printed. If we discover that one has slipped past us and been printed, we will ban the person who submitted the letter from our editorial pages. We want you to say what you think in your own words.
- We reserve the right to edit the letters for clarity.
- We won’t hold out letters simply because we disagree with an opinion. If we held all letters that offended our readers, we would be a weakened and poor reflection of the depth and breadth of people living in our community.
We encourage our readers to write. The best editorial pages are those in which our readers express a variety of views.
Letters to the editor offer a safe space for their views and a place for civil conversation. By being civil in how we express ourselves, we open the door to understanding one another rather than offending readers and shutting the door to their consideration of our thoughts.
Why do newspapers print letters that many would see as offensive? Letters serve as a safety valve in a community. “Better a hateful bigot express himself with a vile opinion than with harassment or violence,” Bill Reader, an associate professor at E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, says.
Second, the community must remain aware of the broad range of thought among its people. The letters we print allow the community to look at itself and ask, “Is this a reflection of who we are?” Those who disagree with what they read can respond with their perspective.
Being exposed only to ideas we agree with builds walls against challenging thoughts that might give us new insights and perspectives that expand our thinking. Those new ideas might make us more tolerant and more willing to compromise.
We encourage our readers to write letters and become part of the dynamic representative democracy the nation’s founders created and which millions of American soldiers have fought to protect.
