Policies

Letters to the Editor & Op-Ed Policy: 

The News-Letter encourages Letters to the Editor and op-eds as ways for members of the community to express their opinions in a formal manner (as opposed to online comments, which do not appear in the paper). The Johns Hopkins News-Letter reserves the sole right to edit all op-ed pieces and/or Letters to the Editor for grammar, clarity, accuracy and style. This applies to the body of the submission as well as its headline. Upon approval for publication, all op-eds and Letters to the Editor become property of The News-Letter. The News-Letter reserves the right to not publish any op-ed or Letter to the Editor for any reason, at the sole discretion of the Editors-in-Chief. All submissions may be published online as well as in the paper, and no anonymous submissions will be accepted.

Op-Eds:

Op-Eds are solely the opinion of the contributing author and do not represent the views of The News-Letter. Any author affiliated with the University or the Baltimore community is able to submit op-eds. All op-eds must be published under names or organizational titles and not pseudonyms. Submissions with factual inaccuracies will not be published.

Op-eds are typically around 800-1,000 words and contain hyperlinks for factual evidence. To submit an op-ed for consideration, please email opinions@jhunewsletter.com. If your piece is a response to a published op-ed, please see the Letters to the Editor Section. 

Letters to the Editor: 

Letters to the Editor are limited to 400 words, must address an article previously published in The News-Letter that school year, and must include the author’s name. It should be sent to chiefs@jhunewsletter.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line.  

Submittal of an op-ed and/or Letter to the Editor acknowledges your acceptance of and agreement to these policies. Any questions about these policies should be directed to the Editors-in-Chief of The News-Letter at chiefs@jhunewsletter.com. 

Editorials:

Editorials are published by the Editorial Board of The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, and reflect the opinions of the majority of the Board. Board members who disagree are invited to publish a dissenting editorial. The Editorial Board is composed of the Editors-in-Chief, a rotating Managing Editor, the Opinions Editor and a rotating Editor-At-Large, who is a non-news editor on staff. 

Reporting a Factual Error:

To report factual errors, please email managing@jhunewsletter.com and your submission will be evaluated. 

Website Commenting Policy:

The comments section of this website is intended to be a safe space where you are encouraged to express your point of view. Please be civil, and please be respectful of other commenters’ viewpoints. The comments section is not a place to attack others or for commercial promotion but rather, to express your thoughts on an article or its subject and to engage in polite discussion with fellow commenters. We encourage you to post a comment under your real name in order to promote respectful, healthy discussion and to lend credibility to your viewpoint.

The News-Letter reserves the right to reject comments for any reason, including the following: it contains vulgarity, profanity, commercial promotion, impersonations; it contains speech that degrades others on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sex, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability, or other classification; it makes a personal attack on News-Letter staff or other commenters.

If you feel that your comment was erroneously rejected, or if you would like to report an approved comment that was inappropriately moderated, please email managing@jhunewsletter.com.

The News-Letter encourages Letters to the Editor and op-eds as ways for members of the community to express their opinions in a formal manner (as opposed to online comments, which do not appear in the paper). The Johns Hopkins News-Letter reserves the sole right to edit all op-ed pieces and/or Letters to the Editor for grammar, clarity, accuracy and style. This applies to the body of the submission as well as its headline. Upon approval for publication, all op-eds and Letters to the Editor become property of The News-Letter. The News-Letter reserves the right to not publish any op-ed or Letter to the Editor for any reason, at the sole discretion of the Editors-in-Chief. All submissions may be published online as well as in the paper, and no anonymous submissions will be accepted.

Statement of Copyright

All articles, opinion pieces, letters to the editor, cartoons and other contributions submitted to The News-Letter, as well as photographs taken specifically for the newspaper, become the property of The News-Letter upon submission and are under its copyright. Articles cannot be reprinted or cross-posted online without explicit permission of the Editors-in-Chief, and permission to cross-post a full article may only be given under extraordinary circumstances.