[dave_a]

I am a fan of LTEs, or letters to the edittor of newspapers.

Surprisingly it appears a lot of people read them.

MAP (Media Awareness Project) has instructions on how to write them effectively as well as links to web submission forms to many papers and directories to papers lacking a web submission form.

I have found that it helps to actually read the paper as many will publish LTEs related to recent stories they ran.

LTEs are a decent way to express your views in a one sided fashion, that is, there is no debate unless the paper runs an opposing view. Short, pithy, level headed and you stand a good chance of getting published.

I wrote a pro pot one approaching from the libertarian angle of personal choice and it got published in a conservative, small town paper which surprised me. It was the first LTE I wrote around 3 years ago. In it I got to dispell some myths being perpetuated by a nurse who wrote an article on the dangers of pot like she was some kind of authority.

Pick your issue, settle on the argument you consider most likely to be considered by the paper's circulation and write it. Most LTEs need to be 300 words or less so the average poster here should have no difficulty with it.