1. We reserve the right not to publish your opinion.
2. Opinion pieces should be logical and easy for someone with an eighth-grade reading level to follow. People are busy, and we want them to be able to digest your opinion.
3. Opinion pieces must be at least 300 words, cite sources with hyperlinks, and defend claims made in the piece. This allows us to:
   1. Understand the issue fully.
   2. Appease the almighty Google search algorithm so that as many people as possible will read your opinion.
4. Mid Bay News will not print ad hominem (personal) attacks on public figures or private citizens. When writing opinion pieces, attempt to be the person your dog (or cat) thinks you are. Good rule of thumb: If they aren’t elected, work for government, or aren’t the leader of a local business, non-profit or religious organization – keep their names out of your mouth and off the email.
5. We will not publish opinion pieces about national politics. There are plenty of other national news outlets that would love to consider your opinion piece. Opinions about national issues that have a local angle (e.g., the national defense budget’s impact on Eglin Air Force Base or the Congress’s budget’s effects on the local tourism industry) will be considered.
6. Writers of opinion pieces must allow us to use their legal name on a piece. Writers must include a phone number for us to contact and verify your opinion piece. We will not print your opinion if you choose not to include a number and your name so we can contact you (the phone number won’t be published to our website, we’ll use it to contact you). No exceptions. Once we’ve verified that you are the writer of the piece, we will keep the email you sent us as proof that you sent it to us. We will not otherwise distribute your information.
7. We won’t consider pubilishing opinion articles submitted to other media. We’re a jealous news outlet.  
8. Mid Bay News reserves the right to edit your piece for clarity.
9. By sending your opinion piece, you give Mid Bay News the right to publish it. We’d think this is obvious, but it always becomes necessary to state the obvious in the news business.
10. Once you submit your opinion piece to us, it becomes our intellectual property. This allows us to keep it on our website without getting sued for copyright infringement.
11. We also reserve the right to take your opinion off our website after we publish it. We don’t plan to, but we reserve the right to.

Have questions about our opinion policy? Please write our publisher at christopher@midbaynews.com. You can also write this address if you wish to share a story idea with us that might not necessarily be an opinion.