The Slidell Times welcomes opinion articles, guest columns, letters, commentary, and community perspectives from local residents, business owners, public officials, civic leaders, educators, advocates, and other contributors who want to share thoughtful views with the Slidell community.
By submitting content to The Slidell Times, you agree to the contributor guidelines and terms of use listed below.
Opinion Article Submission Guidelines
Opinion submissions should be clear, respectful, factual, and relevant to Slidell, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, or issues that affect our local community. We encourage strong opinions, but all submissions should be written in good faith and should contribute meaningfully to public discussion.
Acceptable Opinion Topics
Submissions may cover local government, public policy, education, business, community development, public safety, local events, economic issues, neighborhood concerns, civic life, culture, faith, nonprofit work, and other topics of public interest.
Original Content Requirement
All submitted articles must be original work created by the person submitting the article. By submitting an article, you confirm that you own the content or have the legal right to submit it for publication.
Accuracy and Source Responsibility
Contributors are responsible for the accuracy of the facts, claims, quotes, statistics, and references included in their submissions. If your article includes specific factual claims, public accusations, statistics, legal claims, financial claims, medical claims, or statements about another person or organization, you should be prepared to provide reliable supporting sources upon request.
Respectful Public Debate
The Slidell Times supports open discussion and diverse viewpoints. However, submissions should not include personal attacks, harassment, threats, hate speech, profanity, knowingly false statements, defamatory claims, or content intended to mislead readers.
No Defamation or Unverified Accusations
Opinion articles may criticize ideas, policies, organizations, public decisions, and public officials, but contributors may not submit false statements of fact about any person, business, organization, or public body. Serious accusations must be supported by credible evidence.
Conflicts of Interest
Contributors should disclose any financial, political, business, personal, or organizational relationship that may be relevant to the topic of the article. This includes employment, campaign involvement, paid advocacy, ownership interests, or direct involvement in the issue being discussed.
Political and Campaign Content
Political opinion articles may be accepted at the discretion of The Slidell Times. Contributors must clearly identify themselves and disclose any campaign, committee, candidate, PAC, party, or advocacy group connection related to the content.
AI-Assisted Content
If artificial intelligence tools were used to draft, edit, research, or substantially assist with the submitted article, contributors should disclose that information when submitting the article. Contributors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and legality of all AI-assisted content.
Length and Formatting
Opinion articles should generally be between 500 and 1,200 words. Shorter letters or longer guest columns may be accepted at the discretion of The Slidell Times. Submissions should include a clear title, the contributor’s full name, and a short author bio if desired.
Editing Rights
The Slidell Times reserves the right to edit submissions for grammar, spelling, clarity, formatting, headline style, readability, length, SEO, legal concerns, and editorial standards. We may also decline, remove, or request revisions to any submission at our sole discretion.
Publication Is Not Guaranteed
Submission of an article does not guarantee publication. The Slidell Times may reject submissions for any reason, including but not limited to lack of local relevance, unsupported claims, poor quality, legal risk, promotional content, duplicate content, offensive material, or failure to follow these guidelines.
Contributor Terms of Use
By submitting an opinion article, guest column, letter, image, biography, or other content to The Slidell Times, you agree to the following terms.
Permission to Publish
You grant The Slidell Times permission to publish, edit, display, distribute, promote, excerpt, archive, and share your submitted content on our website, social media pages, email newsletters, search engines, advertising materials, and other digital or print platforms associated with The Slidell Times.
Content License
You retain ownership of your original submitted content. However, by submitting content, you grant The Slidell Times a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to use, reproduce, publish, distribute, display, modify, promote, and archive the content in connection with The Slidell Times and its related platforms.
Contributor Responsibility
You are solely responsible for the content you submit. You agree that your submission does not violate any law, copyright, trademark, privacy right, publicity right, confidentiality obligation, contractual obligation, or other legal right of any third party.
Images and Media
If you submit photos, graphics, videos, or other media, you confirm that you own the media or have permission to submit it for publication. You also confirm that any identifiable people shown in submitted media have given permission for publication when required by law.
No Payment Unless Agreed in Writing
Unless a separate written agreement states otherwise, submissions to The Slidell Times are unpaid. Publication of a submitted article does not create an employment, contractor, agency, partnership, or paid contributor relationship.
No Endorsement
Opinion articles represent the views of the individual contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Slidell Times, its owners, editors, advertisers, partners, or affiliates.
Right to Remove Content
The Slidell Times reserves the right to remove, update, correct, restrict, or unpublish any submitted content at any time for editorial, legal, ethical, technical, or business reasons.
Indemnification
By submitting content, you agree to hold harmless The Slidell Times, its owners, editors, employees, contractors, affiliates, and partners from any claims, damages, liabilities, costs, or expenses arising from your submitted content, including claims related to defamation, copyright infringement, privacy violations, false statements, or unlawful content.
Author Name and Identity
Contributors must submit articles under their real name unless The Slidell Times grants an exception. We may request verification of identity before publication. Anonymous or pseudonymous submissions may be rejected.
Promotional Content
Opinion submissions should not be used primarily as advertisements. Articles that promote a business, product, service, event, campaign, organization, or cause may be treated as sponsored content, advertising, or a press release and may require payment or separate approval.
Comments and Public Response
Published articles may receive public comments, social media discussion, criticism, or responses from readers. The Slidell Times is not responsible for how readers respond to published opinion content, though we may moderate comments according to our own policies.
Corrections
If a contributor discovers an error in a published article, they should notify The Slidell Times as soon as possible. The Slidell Times may issue corrections, clarifications, updates, or editor’s notes at its discretion.
How to Submit an Opinion Article
To submit an opinion article or guest column, please include your article text, full name, contact information, short author bio, and any relevant disclosures. Submissions should be written clearly and should be ready for editorial review.
The Slidell Times may contact contributors for clarification, verification, revisions, or additional information before publication.
Final Editorial Authority
The Slidell Times has final authority over whether a submission is accepted, edited, published, promoted, removed, or declined. These guidelines may be updated at any time without prior notice.
By submitting content to The Slidell Times, you confirm that you have read, understand, and agree to these Contributor Guidelines and Terms of Use.
