Despite the digital age we live in, newspapers remain an essential voice for communities. Voices must be heard outside of the internet, in other places, in public.
Dive to the centre pages of your local paper to find the vocal minority. Readers, through the letters pages, are able to make their views known and pose challenging questions that get missed in news content.
It is an opportunity to rebalance the narrative a tiny bit. My local rag is very right leaning, but there are many pro European, lefty people found on the letters pages.
So why is it important to get a letter printed? The answer is that it goes out to the community at grass roots level and you can guarantee there will be people nodding or shaking their head when they read it. Some of those people may be local government people or councillors. Some may be business people or social service people. But moreover, you got your voice out, beyond the echo chamber of the Internet, into the real world.
Yes, the real world still exists, and editors are desperate for contributions to their pages. They want to print things, and you want to say things. See how that works?
All you need do is send a quick email, the shorter the better, and maybe it will get printed. I have done this many times and had many printed. Usually I don’t expect print. Usually I am very sarcastic in my letters.
Local press is a good way of challenging local and national politics. But it’s good to steer your point to a local level, for example asking when your local hospital will benefit from Brexit. (Clue: It won’t).
