Have you written a Letter To an Editor for publication?
Having lived in ‘the middle of nowhere’ for years, between 4 town newspapers, it was my free opportunity to speak up. Have you, and if so, any interesting experiences..?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Yes. at least a dozen or more over the years In Galesburg, Illinois; in Salina. Kansas; Wichita, Kansas' in the Tampa Tribune and in the Tampa Bay Times. A couple drew responses from people on the political right, and among the evangelical community.
wordywalt
Level 9
Jan 2, 2018
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Yes, ‘a Wordsmith!’ And, responses… It wasn’t half as stressful checking that my letter ‘read right’ ..as it was watching for rebuttals … and wondering if the editor would allow an instant response, or make me wait the full ‘30 days.’ And if you’re between a lot of papers, keeping track of their submission rules & word limits get tricky...
Yea. The local rag here in Colorado Springs is called "The Independent". I stopped submitting them for publication after the legal pot shops started to dominate the pages.
Jack-of-scythes
Level 6
Jan 2, 2018
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...so, with my previous opportunity to submit to multiple papers, I’d long wondered how frustrating it would be to feel limited to one. If you get sick of the paper, why feed it?
Sure, that's what the letters page is for. I've had three or four in the NYT and one in the WashPost and then assorted local rags. Oddly enough, one letter about Israel appeared in the International Herald Tribune (anyone remember that?) and IIRC the Jerusalem Post on the day of Yitzchak Rabin's memorial service. I got calls for weeks after that.
andygee
Level 7
Jan 2, 2018
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Impressive… That’s what I’m wonderin about ~
I wrote a few in a small town. My wife banned me. When she went into a grocery store and heard many people talking about what I wrote. Some people don't get satire.... I thought that partial birth abortions were taking abortions too far, so I suggested I wanted to mount one like a moose head but with scissors stickin out of it head, since partial birth abortions were O.K. and all. Well it certainly did get people talking about what a partial birth abortion was all right! None the less my wife was less than impressed.....
DavidLaDeau
Level 8
Jan 2, 2018
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My wife’s employer was like-mined, and would get a kick out of mine. My wife was apolitical, so may not have noticed such banter… She would cut them from the office paper, to bring them home..
I have written quite a few. About unwanted development ( that I later actively helped to halt - took over 4yrs).
Some other environmental issues, about littering and dumping.
Most of my other ones were about what I call "stupid human tricks " - where people do something totally dumb that gets them in trouble with wildlife, and often the wildlife is then labeled as a nuisance , and killed. Makes me nuts !
evergreen
Level 8
Jan 2, 2018
1
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Good to hear! Dang, it’s free! Most papers are so hurting for controversy you don’t need to subscribe to have something, almost anything printed. Controversy sells! And yes, landuse …I was on ‘that side,’ too ~
I had a letter appear in the Boston Globe, maybe 20-25 years ago when a series of abortion clinics were bombed or were being heavily protested by pro-lifers. I recall my letter was in protest of a pro-life leader who I felt was responsible for inciting the violence. Had another letter in a Rochester NY paper perhaps another 10 years before that which is more vague in my mind but had to do with secular humanism; at that time, the Rochester School Board was being infested by the religious right.
godef
Level 7
Jan 2, 2018
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Before I asked this question, the first letter I recall ‘hand writing’ and mailing away was for the same reasons you wrote Boston Globe. A local clinic was being harassed by the same… Good for you, in the day - that was heroic!
I havent done it. WHat did you write about?
btroje
Level 9
Jan 2, 2018
0
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...dang, what haven’t I written about might be easier 
Decades, and literally hundreds of ‘LTE’s,’ several in our ‘state paper,’ The Oregonian. I’ve also written ‘ghost letters,’ submitted by like-minded activists around the state for a particular cause…
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