The Oakland Press is proud of its policy of trying to run every letter to the editor that it receives, provided the correspondence meets the basic criteria.
This includes a letter being 250 words or less and not written in a libelous or vulgar manner.

Unfortunately, fulfilling that goal becomes difficult, if not impossible at certain times of the year, such as during election time.

When we get more letters than we can possibly publish on the Opinion Page, we do have one outlet — our website. Letters that we just can’t seem to get into the newspaper are uploaded to the website so that our readers’ opinions can be viewed in one fashion, or another. Usually, the website is the only alternative when space gets too tight. We realize most people would prefer to have their letters published but we believe that placing them on the web is a reasonable solution. It certainly is better than not publishing it at all.

Consequently, if you’ve submitted a letter and you don’t see it published in three or four week — hopefully sooner — then we encourage you to call us. We’ll track the letter down to make sure we received it and then can give you a status report on whether it is still pending for publication on the Opinion Page or if it has been placed online.

Many newspaper just pick and choose certain letters for publication and throw away the others they may receive.

The Oakland Press doesn’t do that. We respect our readers’ opinions and we pride ourselves on being a vehicle for them to express their views. Publishing the letters in the order that they are received usually works out. But times, as mentioned, if the volume gets too large, we have to go to plan B, which in this case is the web.