A letter to the editor of your local newspaper should be short and sweet – it shouldn’t be any longer than 200 words. 

If you’re looking for some inspiration for how you might write a letter to the editor about empty homes, here’s one that was recently published in the Irish Times. Try to personalise your letter as editors will want something that appeals to the local community, and make sure to sign off with your full name and the town, village or city you’re based in.

If you want to get an action or event into local news, sending a press release is a great way to do it. A press release should read like a news story, so make sure to write about yourself in the third person. A good structure is as follows:

• Opening paragraph: Who? What? When? Where? How? Try to answer as much of these as possible while also keeping it succinct. For example: “A local activist has launched a petition calling on Mayo TDs to commit to keeping Ireland out of European wars.” 

• Second paragraph: Start rounding out the rest of the crucial details. You might include a bit more information about yourself, i.e., your name, age, where you’re based, how many signatures your petition has gotten.

• Round out your story: Take another paragraph or two to get across the extent of the problem (“Nationwide polling shows that over 75% of people in Ireland support our neutrality and don’t want us being dragged into wars between major powers”).
• Quotes: Including good quotes is essential for a press release. This could be one to three paragraphs long and should reinforce what has already been said above, but is less about the facts and more about the emotion. For example: “As a parent myself, I’m shocked at the level of brainwashing going on here. The local school [name school] is awash with posters telling kids to sign up for this growing army.”
• Notes: At the end of the press release, include your mobile number, your email address and let editors know they can contact you if they need any more information. Also, make sure to either attach pictures of yourself to the email or send a link to photos. Try to include a few pictures of yourself and have a good mix of landscape and portrait. Make sure pictures are high quality to maximise your chances of getting your press release published.

Another good option is to write an opinion piece for your local newspaper about the issue you’re campaigning on. Some people might find this easier than writing a press release — it’s more about the emotion and communicating the extent of the problem from your own perspective, and there’s more creative freedom. There’s a good guide on writing opinion pieces from Harvard University that’s available here. 

Some of this advice is more geared towards national newspapers — most local newspapers probably won’t have an opinion or comment editor, so feel free to contact the overall editor of the newspaper. If you don’t hear back after a few days, don’t hesitate to follow up — editors are often busy, and they might have missed your first email. Finally, if you still don’t hear back after a second email follow up, try giving them a call.

Another great way to get your campaign into your local media is by getting on your local radio station. You can do this in one of two ways: by sending a press release to your local station, or by reaching out and asking if they would be interested in interviewing you about your campaign. 

If you’re doing the latter, try to find a few different people to contact — you can approach presenters and producers, and make sure to communicate in your email why the issue is so important. If your campaign has already had some success, such as a few hundred people signing a petition, make sure to tell them that so they know locals are engaged on the issue.

Before going on air, ask whoever is interviewing you if they can give you a steer on the kind of questions they’ll be asking. This will help you get prepared before going on. If they ask a question you don’t know the answer to, that’s OK! Just say it’s a difficult question to answer, or you don’t have all the facts, and try to pivot to talking about something you are more certain on. This document is a good guide to read before doing a radio or TV interview.