Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to get published in newspaper?

DD13, my budding journalist (among other things) wants to get some editorials/articles posted in the newspaper. We come from a large city, so I imagine they would not be too likely to accept it. Unfortunately, I don't even know how to submit anything. Has anyone had any experience with this kind of thing?

Could be off base here, but if you look on the inside first page of most papers there should be some contact info/procedures to follow for publication.

Letters to the editor are a fun way to start, in response to something she's read. If she has ideas for her own articles that will be harder getting accepted, but certainly worth trying. I wouldn't volunteer how old she is unless they ask.

Wish her luck!

(Oh, also go online to some of the papers...there might be better opportunity there)

A letter to the editor is a great idea.

I might also suggest that even major newspapers usually have a "guest editorial" piece about some burning issue each day or each week. If she has a cause to write about, it's possible she could get that spot. They usually include a photo of the guest editor, too, and I have seen pieces by articulate kids published there in more than one newspaper in more than one city.

She could also offer to write a "kids around town" article once a month for the education editor. If she can find a human interest story and write it from a uniquely kid's perspective, it might be something that would interest them if she has the writing skills to pull it off.

Well, editing it isn't working, so I'll just post what I was going to say here: Is there a more common name for the "kids around town" article that you stated above? I don't recall our newspaper having that, but then again, I only glance through the more "filler" sections, (education, obituaries, comics, etc.)

What about starting a blog? One of the kids that I know went on an overseas trip with her family and had an educational blog the whole time about what she was experiencing.

Our paper has something similar (Young Voices or some such thing).

A blog is a great idea.

I had a column in a weekly paper for four years, about twenty years ago (gosh, I'm old). (It was fun, but be prepared for some funny phone calls from readers!) You might try a weekly, actually--they don't typically pay as well as the dailies (at least in my day that was true), and are sometimes more open to emerging writers. She might try writing a couple of pieces on spec, as samples, and send them to the editor of the section (arts, sports, whatever) in which she's most interested, and then follow up with a phone call in a week or two.

Hope that helps!

peace
minnie

Your newspaper might not have a kid's section, Bassetlover. If not, then your daughter would have to start it. If you could find a newspaper from another town that has a kid's section, you could submit that with your daughter's letter (and her writing samples) to show what you/she had in mind. If not, just a description of what she'd like to do would probably be sufficient.

Just remind her that everything she writes is going to be part of what they judge her on. It's all they'll know about her, so professionalism is vital. (Not to encourage perfectionism, but I suspect it's a longshot that they'd take her on even if she's a writing prodigy. Any little error will make it that much less likely.)

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).

I second keet's idea about the specialized sections. I know that our newspaper publishes twice-weekly supplements devoted to your specific suburb. With limited resources, these sections can be quite difficult for the newspapers to fill. Each of supplement usually has its own editor (you should be able to find the name published somewhere within the section). Contacting that person will be much easier than trying to contact a higher-up in the "downtown" office.