I worked with a woman who was trying to get herself published in the newspaper. She said her plan was to write frequent letters to the editor so they got to know her. Sometimes, frequent writers get asked to do the guest editorials someone mentioned earlier. It worked for her.
Our newspaper recently dropped it's section written by teen writers due to budget cuts, but other papers might have them. Also, our paper has a section that goes out to each local city/county, and they are much more likely to publish articles by regular people (rather than reporters).
