Our View: New rules for letter writers this season

With election season come more letters to the editor, most of them revolving around one or another political candidate or party.

While we aren’t changing our regular rules for letter writers — including a requirement to be factually

correct, avoid libel and not attack other letter writers — we feel the need to add a few additional rules especially for the season.

Rule No. 1: Stick to local politics. No more letters about presidential or vice presidential candidates. We fact check all our letters as much as possible and we are a local paper. Trying to fact-check claims about a national candidate is a nightmare and time consuming. We know what’s happening locally and assume that’s why you read this paper. If you want to write letters about national candidates, send them to the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Rule No. 2: Be civil. Letters to the editor should offer a safe space for thoughtful people to share their views and expect civil conversation. As Swift County Monitor editor Reed Anfinson said last week: “By being civil in how we express ourselves, we open the door to understanding one another rather than offending readers and shutting the door to their consideration of our thoughts.”

Rule No. 3: Endorsement letters are OK. Unlike most other papers in the area, we are not charging people for endorsement letters. But we ask that people keep endorsement letters under 200 words.

Rule No. 4: Be original. Write something you can be proud of. Tell people why you prefer a certain candidate or oppose a certain issue. Don’t copy emails and social media posts and present them as your own. If you do that and we catch you, you’ll be banned from the opinion page.

Rule No. 5: Criticize actions rather than attacking the individual. Name-calling is for children who don’t know better and should have no place in the paper, church or any public debate. It goes back to being thoughtful and outlining the reasons you prefer one candidate’s viewpoints over another’s. While many social media posts feel like people shouting at each other and not listening, we can do better. See Rule No. 2.

Rule No. 6: You’ll be edited. It’s a newspaper. It happens to us all.

Rule No. 7: Don’t wait too long. We will not run any political letters in the Oct. 17 or Nov. 1 issues. On Oct. 17 we will be mailing our newspaper with a special election section to every home in Carlton County, in hopes that voters will educate themselves on their local candidates. That week we will avoid political letters. Additionally, we will not publish any letters in the last issue before the election on Nov. 5, unless it’s in response to inaccuracies published the week before. We believe people should have an opportunity to rebut, thus, no letters on Nov. 1.