Letter to the editor

Help Democrats get their message out!

Tell your friends and neighbors why you think Idaho Democrats represent their values and interests best. Our 5 core values are opportunity, fairness, responsibility, quality of life, and community!

Here are some tips to give you a better chance of getting your letter published.

• Keep your letter short. Most letter to the editor pages limit letters to 200 to 250 words.
• Get to the point in the very first sentence. Most readers won’t get past the first sentence if they don’t understand what your point is.
• Include your full name, address, e-mail address and daytime telephone number. The newspaper will not publish your street address or phone number, but editors often call letter writers to verify authorship.
• Improve your chance of being selected for publication by referring to a specific news story or editorial published in the paper. Letters that respond to something that was in the paper often get first priority.
• Do not respond to something you saw on TV or heard on the radio. Just as newspapers like to promote themselves in letters to the editor, they rarely will promote competitors.
• Read your letter aloud to a family member before you send it. If your listener can’t understand it, then your readers won’t understand it, either.
• Keep trying. Most newspapers have a 30-day rule, or a 45-day rule on frequent contributors.

These links will take you to each paper’s Letter to the Editor page. Please follow their instructions for submitting your letters.

Send a copy of your letter to sally@idahodems.org so we can keep track of the good things people are saying about Idaho Democrats.