✍️ Letters to an Editor

Tri-Cities Daily invites you to write a public Letter to an Editor sharing your thoughts on local political candidates for consideration among our election guide links.

Why does this matter?

Individual endorsements are extremely helpful in constructing a multi-dimensional picture of a candidate. In this spirit, letters to the editor have long been considered a key public forum of the democratic process.

But the public forum has expanded well beyond the editorial section of local newspapers. People make these kinds of endorsements in other channels where they get instant feedback and sometimes a larger audience.

Once central, the formal letter-to-the-editor has been put in the corner rocking chair of public discourse—still present, but primarily replaced by social media posts. Who needs to write a letter to the editor in an era where we can all just publish our own opinions?

What we miss by seeing these kinds of endorsements primarily on social media is exposure to a wide-open diversity of opinion and viewpoints. Social media gradually relegates us to silos of comfortable and like-minded opinions, accelerating our polarization.

How to write a letter to an editor

Tri-Cities Daily will consider linking to any public “letter to an editor” published via blog, website, or social media.

We choose to link letters based on their ability to provide a factual, constructive, and reasoned argument for or against a candidate. We will not censor letters based on viewpoint.

You can either send an email with a link to the letter to letters@triciti.es or tag Tri-Cities Daily in a comment so we see it. (We‘ll give it a like so you know we received it and will consider it.) In order to include a Facebook post for consideration, the visibility of the post must be set to public. You may also wish to restrict who can comment on your public posts.

We encourage you to also submit your letter to the Tri-City Herald.