To Democrats interested in sending political letters to south coast newspapers
From Tim Palmer, tim@timpalmer.org, 332-0261
April, 2006
Writing letters to the editors of our local newspapers is an effective and important way to express political opinion. A good showing of letters is essential to any politician’s campaign.
Please write a letter in your own words and style, saying what you think is important. Support for all our Democratic candidates is important (but one at a time is usually best for a letter). News articles, internet sites, and campaign brochures are all useful in formulating letters to the editors.
We recommend sending letters to all the local papers; they do not care if a neighboring paper is also printing the same letter. Sending letters to the Register Guard in Eugene or the Oregonian in Portland is fine for statewide or national candidates but do the local papers first--they are far more likely to run your letter.
If the letter volume is large, papers may print a sampling; if they get 10 letters from Democrats and 5 from Republicans, they might print 2 and 1 respectively. So even if your letter does not get printed, it’s important to send it in.
It’s also extremely important to watch the paper and respond to negative claims about our Democratic candidates. Feel free to contact the Democratic candidates themselves if you need facts, clarification, or help in formulating a response. All our local papers are fine newspapers; all are extremely important in shaping political opinion. A few practical tips follow.
All papers encourage email submissions, but fax or mail is okay.
Always include your address, phone, and email if you have email.
Send letters to all the local papers.
Keep letters concise and reasonable, with strong attention to influencing swing voters. Do not alienate these people by polarizing important issues. Even if you write a hard-hitting political piece, be courteous and respectful. Always remember--the reader needs to trust you. Have somebody else read your piece before you send it out.
Here are the details about the local papers:
Curry County Reporter, P.O. Box 76, Gold Beach, OR 97444
247-6643 , molly@currycountyreporter.com, Editor Molly Walker, weekly, 200 words. Friday deadline. Normally does not accept full-length opinion columns unless by a major spokesperson. This paper is important because Gold Beach is centrally located and is the seat of county government. It gets a lot of letters from Republicans, so it needs a lot of letters from us.
Port Orford News, P.O. Box 5, 519 W 10th St., Port Orford, OR 97465
541 332-2361, portorfordnews@earthlink.net, weekly. 350 words at most, Friday noon deadline for Tuesday release. Guest columns can be up to 600 words if compelling. Editor WillowSong Hall encourages people to write to her paper. The readership is mixed conservative and progressive, with more Democrats than in the other towns.
Also in Port Orford, this fine free paper is important: Port Orford Today, P.O. Box 49, Port Orford, OR 97465, 332-6565, valerie@mydfz.com, Evan and Valerie Kramer, eds. This popular, well-produced weekly includes letters of 250 words as an absolute maximum.
Curry Coastal Pilot, P.O. Box 700, Brookings, OR 97415, 4693123, sgraves@currypilot.com, Scott Graves, editor, 2 issues per week, 250 words. Normally does not accept longer opinion columns. This paper is critical because Brookings has the most people. The paper tends to be non-political; common-sense, reasonable letters are important here.
The World, P.O. Box 1840, Coos Bay, OR 97420, 269-1222, theworldnews@pulitzer.net, weekly, out on Wednesday.
300 words; the shorter the better. This paper is important to northern Curry County and to Coos Co.
Regional Papers: Eugene Register Guard, Henny Willis, editorial page editor, Hwillis@guardnet.com
Oregonian, in Portland, Giselle Williams, letters editor, letters@news.oregonian.com
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