Well Folks, it’s come time to limit the length of letters to the editor. I know in the past that we have allowed flexibility for you to develop your opinion or point of view but it has now come to the point that it has gotten out of hand. Some people are sending letters to us that are taking up half a page or more. That equates to a $260 ad (black and white) and $370 ad (in color) for just half a page.
I’ve written about the importance of letters to the editor and how they show the vibrancy of a newspaper, and we have a lot that have been coming to us. However, there continues to be letters that are over 1000 words and some have been in excess of 2,800 words so it’s now to the point that we have to put some restrictions on the letters for a number of reasons.
First, with the increase in circulation of our newspaper in the Yellowstone County area, we have double the coverage and double the amount of newspapers we are printing each week, and we are NOT charging for letters to the editor. However, we want to make sure you have a voice as we are your hyper-local weekly newspaper so I’m a little apprehensive to just shut out your voice but it HAS gotten abused in the length of our letters to the editor. Not because you don’t have important things to say, or write about important current issues, but they are getting too long to even put in our newspaper, especially when our deadline is Tuesdays at noon.
Secondly, If you have something that important that takes up that much space, I encourage you to take out an ad and pay for it. That way, you can put what you want and make it stick out however you want.
Third, we are trying to make our newspaper more precise with the limited space we have even though we have increased our pages from 12-16 pages to 20-24 pages. Even with the increase of support for our newspaper, we have to make a decision and cut off point somewhere.
Lastly, you can send us one letter to the editor per week. We have had many individuals send us multiple letters to the editor for the same week and we’ve had to tell them only one each week. We usually bump the second letter to the next week. All I ask is that you keep the first letter to the point. Then, you can send another letter on another point you want to make for the following week.
With that being said, and for the time being, we are going to limit the letters to the editors to 500 words. I want to give you enough space to develop your point of view or support for something but we have to cut if off somewhere, and 500 is the next limit.
I hope many of our letters will continue to be short and to the point and believe me, I think the more precise letters have the best impact! Especially when you can communicate something comical at the same time!
So, please let us know what you think about this new change. If you like the limit amount or if you don’t agree with it or what amount you think it should be. Send us your letters and let us know what’s on your mind.
Email us your thoughts at info@yellowstonecountynews.com and put “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line.
Until then, I’ll await Bill Everling’s, (subscriber from Minnesota) response and all yours that will be coming because of this.
Until then, see you in the paper!
JDM
