Okay. Hi, welcome back.
So, those three articles, as I hope you saw, were all written in a personal
voice. you they had something important to say
about different issues. The one that you're seeing on your screen
now is by a Duke professor who's an expert on gun control issues.
And she had some really important things to say about gun control.
She wrote this in the wake of the terrible shootings in Connecticut.
you had a piece about what it's like to be a student and to be pregnant and how
institutions should deal with that. And she talked about her, her own
experience, which was incredibly engaging.
It made it much more real. You could hear her voice, and you felt
empathy. You were feeling it not only here, but
you were feeling it here as well. and then the last one was by the Colonel
who's a, now a student at the Duke Nursing School.
Who was talking about tobacco in the military and about questioning why people
who work in the military should be able to buy tobacco with a, at a reduced
price. And he was questioning that from a public
health standpoint. A powerful argument that again one may
form, more powerful, by him talking in a very personal way about patients that he
had treated. And that just pulls you in.
You know lets just take a minute, I've, I've, I have Christian's article here on
the screen in front of you. And I'm hoping you've already looked at
it. But just to remind you, whenever an
American suffers a mass public shooting seven times in 2012 alone.
I think about my dad, and our months of wrenching conversations after the
Columbine High School massacre more than a decade ago.
A Colorado farm boy who grew up with guns and displayed the family rifle in his
study. Dad agreed with the National Rifle
Association, that an armed population was a bulwark against tyranny.
Which goes on to talk about her dad and about herself, but then she turns the
corner and talks about the issue more generally.
Now mind you, this is coming from a Duke University professor who is one of the
countries leading experts on gun control. But she doesn't go up there on Mount
Olympus and just sort of throw out these under bolts of wisdom.
Instead she's trying to talk to you as one human being to another, which is a
really powerful combination. And it's something here at Duke, and in
previous places where I've worked, that I am always urging our authors to do.
Which is, which is to get out of that third person, I am, I'm an expert voice.
Sometimes that's appropriate, but as much as possible, the reader, again, just
sitting there all frazzled at the breakfast table, or wherever they are.
They're trying to make a connection with you not only here, like here.
And it to the extent that you can be vulnerable and reveal yourself.
And share your emotion as well as your intellect.
that's a really powerful combination, not only with the readers but with the
editors who are going to decide whether to accept your article.
So now let's get into some tips about what you should be doing.
And the first one which we have in super large letters is, Make Your Reader Care.
It's what I was just saying. What's the one thing that you want them
to do or to believe or to remember when they finish your story?
Now un, unlike some of the things that Denise and the others have been talking
to you about where it might be a somewhat longer form.
Or more expository, you've going to, as you're going to hear, you can have 700,
750 words. This much, is not very much.
And you've got like two minutes, three minutes, you are not going to solve all
the problems of the world in 700 words. You want to make one point and make it
really well. And you're not just trying to help people
understand the issue. It's an opinion article, you are supposed
to have an opinion about how you feel about it, and what you want them to do
about it. And just saying well this is something
that needs more study, that's usually not good enough.
Do you want them to personally get involved in your community or to get
politically involved or to do something at their local hospital?
Whatever it is, you need to be clear in your mind what it is you're asking the
reader to do. Point number two, tie your issue to
something in the news. I've said this several times before, and
I'm going to say it again. You want to tie in, tie your opinion, as
much as you can. It doesn't always work, but try to tie it
to something in the news. So, what's, what is it that's happening
in the world or in your community today, maybe it's an international crisis.
Maybe it's an ongoing economic crisis. Maybe it's just something in your
community right now, on the day I'm recording this.
As we've seen we are having debates about, about guns, about immigration
about taxes, it's like whatever. And then you can talk as we saw, we saw
people talk about the Superbowl. About the Oscars, you can talk about the
weather, anything, but as much as you can, try to tie what youo're doing to
something in the news. Okay let's go through some of the
mechanics of this. An Op-ed article is about 750 words, it's
not 770, it's not 800. it's certainly not 9 or 10, you know, 900
or a 1,000, sometimes people say, I'll write a longer, and they can, they can
Edit it down, no they won't. If you don't write it short, they're
going to take it, and they're going to throw it in the garbage.
The New York Times, gets hundreds of submissions every day.
And other major papers get fewer than that but it's still a lot.
You don't want to give them any reason to say no to you.
It needs to be nice and tight and about 700, 750 words.
Let's talk a little bit about how it works in terms of the mechanics of this
market. There is a small group of newspapers that
require Op-ed articles exclusively. They are, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and recently
The Chicago Tribune. those are about the only ones, at least
here in the United States, that require articles exclusively.
other newspaper will take articles on a regional basis.
So if you live in Chicago, you could submit an article to the Chicago Tribune,
but not the Chicago Sun Times. And likewise, if you live in the Bay
Area, you could submit an article to the San Francisco Chronicle.
But not to the Oakland Tribune or the San Jose Mercury or other papers.
And that'll be true elsewhere in other parts of the world as well.
The main thing is you have to be, it's really to be ethical, you need to be
upfront with the editor that you're dealing with.
You can do multiple submissions in those papers that do not require a national
exclusivity. But if you're sending an article say to
the Washington Post, you have to give to them exclusively and you can't like shop
it at three or four exclusive places. And hope that one of them will bite.
That's not, that's not the way this works.
So, as you can see there's a bit of game theory that goes on here.
If you send it to the New York Times where your chances are pretty slim.
and especially if it's tied to the news, the clocks ticking.
So while you're waiting for them, probably to say no, but not necessarily,
you're missing out on your chance to, to send it to another paper.
Where maybe your, your odds would be a little better, or even to send it to
multiple papers. if you could tie anything locally, as you
saw the North Carolina paper had lots of North Carolina oriented things, and the
L.A Times and so forth. So if you're in St Louis and you're
watching this recording. And you have something that could, you
know, all things being equal send it to the St Louis Post Dispatch.
And be sure to say in your byline that, you know, you're Joe Smith who is a
pharmacist here in St Louis, or who went to college in St Louis.
Or what's drove through St Louis. Anything you can do to try to tie
yourself to the local market is really helpful.
There are papers, papers know that they're battling with cable and now with
online publications and they're really trying to establish their local
identities. That's their strength, so you want to
play to that as you can. So that's how it works in terms of
exclusivity. Okay, now we're going to, start applying
everything we've just talked about for you to start writing an Op-ed article.
as Denise have talked about in some previous lessons she's asked you to think
about some area of expertise that you have.
And how that might be applied for an op-ed article.
So maybe you could just pause for a minute, even turn off the recording for a
moment. Think about what that is and think about
how you would make that argument. We'll be right back.
