Op-Ed Guidelines for The New York Sun

The New York Sun welcomes op-ed pieces by members of the public. We consider only pieces that are not being sent to other publications. The Sun will never promise to print a piece it hasn’t read. A decision to publish a piece is always tentative and reversible until the piece is actually published.

Please also note that we are in a position to accept only a percentage of the articles offered to us. Some of our best op-eds, though, come from the public. So the welcome extended here is a warm one. To increase the chances of landing a piece in the Sun, we recommend that prospective authors:

• Write about something — a vote in the Senate, say, a jury verdict, a meeting, a hearing, an election result, a concert — that’s expected to happen within the next two weeks. Please avoid writing about something that’s already happened.

• Keep the length of your op-ed to 700 words or fewer. If we receive a piece of more than 700 words, we are likely to send it back for the author to trim before we actually read it. Concision is a courtesy to our busy and to-the-point readers.

• Avoid paragraphs of more than 50 words. Please confine sentences to 30 words or fewer. Modifiers deemed by the Sun, in its sole discretion, as unnecessary will be deleted. The Sun does not permit the use of fake names, un-attributed negative quotes, foul language, puns on a person’s name, or exclamation points. 

• The Sun’s preference is to run op-eds with a single byline. If two authors collaborate on an op-ed, please designate one person as the principal author, and the other author can be credited in a note at the end of the piece as, say, a co-author or principal researcher.

The spirit of the Sun is of open, respectful, and lively discussion of newsworthy issues. A brief email to oped@nysun.com asking about our interest in a story can avoid time and effort being wasted. Freelancers will be asked to grant the Sun in writing exclusive use of the piece in all media.

Please send all submissions in the body of your email. Please do not send PDFs or links.