Editor’s Scratchpad

Friday, April 20, 2001

So you want to write
a letter to the editor

The letters to the editor column is a community's soapbox. It's where citizens get to rage, vent, fume and otherwise express their feelings about what is happening in their neighborhood, city, state, nation, or hemisphere.

The letters column is unique to newspapers. It is one feature that isn't provided by any other news medium. You can't walk into KHON's studio and declare, "I have something to get off my chest, put me on the air for 60 seconds.'

Well, you could, but I don't think they would hand you a mike.

The Star-Bulletin receives up to 100 e-mail letters to the editor every day, and scores more arrive by fax and snail mail -- far, far more than we have the space to print.

Needless to say, a letter that is short -- no more than 150 words -- has the best chance of being printed. Here are other tips to help writers get their letters published:

>> Stick to one topic, and one or two main points.

>> State your opinion in the first paragraph.

>> Provide facts to support your opinion.

>> Include your address and phone number. (We'll keep that information confidential, but we must check to see that you actually wrote the letter.)

Finally, if you want to say something about a topic on which we already have published several letters, try to bring fresh ideas or a new perspective to the subject. Readers would be bored reading letters that are too much alike.

Oh, and if you figure we won't print your letter because it disagrees with our editorial stance, then you figured wrong. We welcome letters that take a different view.

--Mary Poole

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