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Guest perspectives must be approved before publication |
| Written by Trista Steers |
| Wednesday, 04 August 2010 14:13 |
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Over the past year The Camp Verde Journal and Cottonwood Journal Extra has begun strictly enforcing our guidelines when it comes to letters to the editor, and particularly the length requirement. Letters are required to be 300 words or less, and if they’re longer, I send them back to the author and ask him or her to revise the letter. Since we began enforcing the letter’s length requirement, we’ve received many requests for us to make an exception for certain letters or to use the letter as a guest perspective. When it comes to letter length, we rarely, if ever, allow a letter over 300 words to slip through making sure we treat everyone equally. If I allow one letter to run at 400 words I have numerous other writers calling for the same favor. We developed the length requirement to ensure any resident who wants to be heard can do so. Long letters take up more space and force us to print fewer letters. In some cases, however, more than 300 words is needed to express an opinion or point of view on a topic that is important to the community. In those instances, we consider allowing a reader to submit a guest perspective. Guest perspectives must first be approved by editorial staff before they will be considered for publication. When considering guest perspectives for publication several factors are evaluated including, but not limited to:
Our letters to the editor guidelines can be found on our website under “Submissions.” |