Happy 2018!
Welcome to a new year of The People’s Forum, the long-running, ever-engaging conversation - both in print on this page and online at telegram.com - among readers from throughout Central Massachusetts and Northeast Connecticut on the issues that move them to write as part of an ongoing community conversation.
The Telegram & Gazette's People’s Forum, as with letters to the editor in newspapers across the land, was after all, THE social media before there even was A “social media.” Your many voices are part of a continuing community discussion on the issues that move you. And once again we’re happy to publish the name of each letter writer in the past year. Many wrote multiple times, bringing the total number of letters published to just about 900.
And that total doesn’t include the locally written “As I See It” op-eds that appear virtually every week, and sometimes multiple times in a week. Nor does it include the hundreds of comments we receive from you through social media to our Point/Counterpoint pages – about 100 or more comments alone as part of our discussion this past August on the issues related to the possibility of the PawSox coming to Worcester (we could only fit half the comments across two printed pages, but ran the longer series of comments online). And it doesn’t include the thousands of viewers of our Facebook Live webcasts during the year on critical issues, starting last February with our panel on the opioid crisis and ending with our co-sponsoring Worcester School Committee, Worcester City Council, and mayoral debates and presenting their Facebook Live webcasts leading up to November's vote. Our reader engagement efforts have expanded to multiple avenues.
Thank you all for participating!
In a year that saw the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president, the conversation in The People’s Forum during 2017 was dominated, as expected, by the Trump presidency. It was a continuation of the trend we saw in 2016’s election-year cycle that was dominated by Mr. Trump’s rise to the Republican nomination and Hillary Clinton beating Bernie Sanders to the Democratic nomination, and the Trump/Clinton campaigns. The voices we heard this past year on President Trump’s governing, just as in his candidacy, came from both supporters and detractors of his presidency. We don’t see that slowing down in 2018. The stakes on issues that include the #MeToo movement and a nuclear-armed North Korea couldn’t be greater.
But that said, the topics tackled by our letter writers are as varied as the list of contributors. As we embark on our 152nd year, we remain true to our core mission in providing news and information that is vital to you and to publishing your words on this page and online.
Our current guidelines are straightforward. We publish virtually every letter as long as we can confirm authorship, the letter is in good taste and not libelous, is comprehensible and, in the case of handwritten letters, is legible. Material may be libelous if it holds a private person or organization up to hatred, contempt, suspicion of wrongdoing, scorn or ridicule.
We do not publish anonymous letters or letters with pseudonyms. In confirming authorship we require the writer’s full name, a home and mailing address, and a phone number for verification of authorship as well as to contact for questions.
We make an effort to work with authors to clarify letters but cannot guarantee this in every instance. We do not block publication on ideological grounds and do not solicit letters with a particular point of view.
We do however reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, for good taste and for brevity. We also reserve the right to put a close to repetitive conversations. We review letters about active court cases carefully.
Letters can be up to 250 words, except for political endorsements, which can be up to 100 words. Writers can have a letter published every six weeks, although readers can comment as often as they like online under stories, including other letters there, or in posts on our Facebook pages.
Letters must be original. Quotations should be clearly attributed. Generally, we do not publish reprints, extended quotations, open letters or letters that have previously appeared elsewhere.
Letters should be of general public interest. We do not publish strictly personal letters, including those about damaged or missing property or pets, consumer complaints or on personal religious beliefs. We do not publish letters written in verse or essay form.
The deadline for receiving endorsements on federal, state and municipal elections is generally the Wednesday prior to Election Day. We do not publish form letters. All endorsements must be written and signed by their authors. Depending on volume and available space, we attempt to publish letters received before the deadline in the order they are received but cannot guarantee that all will appear. We do not publish them on the day before or day of the election.
Letters for class projects should be submitted as a group with a cover listing the school, teacher(s) and grades of students involved. We normally publish one representative letter from such a project.
Letters should be emailed to letters@telegram.com, with "The People's Forum" as subject line; or sent via U.S. Mail to Telegram & Gazette, 100 Front St., Floor 5, Worcester, MA 01608-1440. Our email and mail addresses appear daily at the bottom of the editorial page.
We welcome your opinions. Join the conversation in 2018!