Westside Journalism Letter to the Editor Policy

1. Letters to editor will be printed in the opinion section of the newspaper or on the website.

2. Guidelines to write letters to the editor will be printed every issue in the opinion section of the paper and available online at westsidewired.com.

3. Letters to the editor may be submitted to Mr. Kaldahl’s mailbox, room 251 or emailed at this address: [email protected]. These letters will be given or forwarded directly to the editorial board. Advisers will not respond because that obligation is that of the editorial board.

4. Letters to editor that have been requested to be printed should not exceed 250 words, must be signed and must include writer’s address and phone number for verification.

5. Letters to the editor will be verified by a member of the editorial board to determine the authenticity of the writer.

6. No material will be printed where content is obscene, invasive of another’s’ privacy, encouraging physical disruption of school activities, and/or implies libel.

7. The WHS Media editorial board reserves the right to withhold a letter or column or other submission and/OR return it for revision if it contains unprotected speech or grammatical errors that could hamper its meaning. Deadlines for letters and columns will be determined by each year’s student staff, allowing sufficient time for verification of authorship prior to publication.

8. The Lance will only publish one letter, per author, per issue.

9. All letters to the editor become the property of the school newspaper upon receipt and will not be returned to the author.

10. Online comments will require a name and email address submitted that are verifiable.

11. Online comments will automatically post.

12. Alerts will be sent to staff editors each time a comment is posted to the site.

13. Online comments that are found in violation of the editorial policy will be removed as quickly as possible.

14. Personal attacks are not allowed.