Election-related letter to the editor policy

With the national elections coming up this fall, the Manchester Mirror has established some guidelines for political letters to the editor and advertising. Please note there will be no exceptions to the standards.

In keeping with our hyper local focus, we will only accept letters to the editor about village, township, school, county commissioner or other local races, and on local and county-wide ballot issues.

All candidates for state and national offices have budgets for advertising. We will not accept letters to the editor on these races. Individuals are welcome to purchase advertising space at our regular rates. If they wish to promote a candidate or cause. All advertising will be clearly marked as to who paid for the ad.

These new letter to the editor policies pertaining to elections are being added to our previously existing letter to the editor policies which include:

• Publication is at the sole discretion of the editors and will be within 30 days of receipt. Unpublished submissions can neither be acknowledged nor returned.
• All submissions become the property of the Manchester Mirror and are subject to editing for length, grammar, accuracy, clarity, and civility. Some letters may appear in condensed form.
• All letters should address a single idea. They must include the author’s name — no pseudonyms or anonymous letters will be published. Please also include your city, village or township; this will be included with your name (but not your full address or email address).
• We ask that all letters to the editor address local issues and come from local experience.
• We do not publish form letters, letters written to other publications, or letters directed to individuals.
• No letters or opinion pieces will be published the issue immediately before an election (unless the letter is a response to a previous letter. In that case, the Mirror may, at its discretion, invite a response that will run in the issue preceding the election.)
• Vitriol should remain in your drafts folder, unsent, as the Mirror will not provide a forum for free-floating aggression, but seeks instead to publish those letters that will educate or provoke thought.
• To give an opportunity to the greatest number of writers, no individual’s work will be published more than once every 30 days.

To submit your letter to the editor, email it to themanchestermirror@gmail.com. The deadline to make it into an upcoming week's Manchester Mirror is Saturday at noon.

The Manchester Mirror will be sending out a questionnaire to each registered candidate of a contested local or county-wide election, as listed on the county website, on October 1 (and a response will be required by October 10). These responses will be assembled into a Manchester-area Voters Guide which will be published both in print and online.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.