Submission Policies

Policy for Submissions to The Wayne Stater

1. The Wayne Stater accepts columns, new briefs, and club briefs of 300 words or less. Deadlines for submissions is the Friday at 5 p.m. before the next edition of the paper. Submissions must include the author’s name, telephone number and email address.
2. The editors are solely responsible for the content of the Wayne Stater and reserve the right to edit, condense or reject any materials that may be submitted.

Letters to the Editor

1. Letters to the Editor are designed to allow readers to respond to something that has been printed or to state a concern about an issue of high salience.
2. Letters to the Editor should be under 300 words.
3. Letters to the Editor must be submitted by Friday at 5 p.m. prior to the next edition of the paper to be considered.
4. Letters to the Editor may be submitted by the following persons – students, faculty, staff members, administrators, university affiliates, area residents.
5. Unsigned letters are never printed. Pen names are also not accepted.
6. All letters must contain a name, current email and current phone number for validation purposes. Writers in the WSC community must submit their email letters via their official WSC email account for verification purposes.
7. Letters submitted by an organization or a group of people must contain at least one member name that will be used with the submission. That person must be the person submitting the letter.
8. Form letters will not be considered.
9. Letters to the Editor that are published in other venues – print, online, or broadcast – shall be considered form letters and may not be accepted.
10. Contributors are limited to one letter every 30 days. Letters thanking individuals or organizations for personal services rendered are not accepted. We do not publish individual consumer complaints about specific businesses.
11. Letters may be submitted via email to the official Wayne Stater email account ([email protected]) OR on paper to The Wayne Stater office (HU402) or The Wayne Stater mailbox (The Wayne Stater, WSC, 1111 Main Street, HU402, Wayne, NE 68787). Letters submitted on paper must be signed.
12. The editor responsible for handling The Stater email account will acknowledge receipt of any email letters, which have met the letter requirements, as soon as possible.
13. The Editor-in-Chief or his/her/their designate will acknowledge receipt of any letter to the editor on paper, which has met all the letter requirements, via email as soon as possible.
14. Current Stater staff may not submit letters to the editor.
15. Letters may be used to criticize, but letters containing personal attacks shall not be published. Personal attacks include comments that question a person’s intelligence, values, integrity, motivations, or decisions. Personal attacks can often but not always focus on a person’s political opinion, sexuality, religion, or nationality.
16. Any Letter to the Editor categorized by the Editor-in-Chief or the Opinion Editor as a personal attack will be reviewed in a meeting by the Opinion Editor and Editor-in-Chief. The Advisor will offer consultation at this meeting. The Editor-in-Chief and Opinion Editor may agree upon the final determination themselves or they may consult the entire Editorial Board before making a decision.
17. Hate speech, misinformation, speech which may incite violence, and speech that disparages or attempts to intimidate any person or group will not be accepted.
18. If deemed a personal attack, hate speech, misinformation, speech to incite violence, to disparage or intimidate persons or groups, the letter will not be published and the individual who sub-mitted the letter will be notified of the decision via email. That notification should come within 10 days of receipt of the email letter or 14 days within receipt of mail or paper submissions, excluding school holidays, summer, and days the college is closed.
19. Letters which contain material that highly duplicates previous submissions-from the same or other writers-may not be printed.
20. The editors are solely responsible for the content of the Wayne Stater and reserve the right to edit or condense submissions for clarity or to meet the length requirement. They also retain the right to reject any materials that may be submitted.
21. Printing of letters to the editor may be in print or online.

Editorials

1. Editorials are written by or solicited by the opinion editor with advisement of the other editors.
2. A Wayne Stater editor may include a byline by an individual, if it reflects a staff individual opinion.
3. Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Wayne Stater editorial staff, consisting of senior editors.
4. Opinions by persons not on staff shall be used as columns.

Editorials, Letters to the Editor, and Columns

1. Comments and opinions in signed editorials, letters to the editor and columns are those of the author and not of The Stater staff, its advisors, or WSC and do not reflect the views of faculty, staff, student body, the student media groups, or the Board of Trustees of the Nebraska State College System.