Submission Guidelines

How We Work

Common Dreams is a U.S.-based nonprofit news outlet that operates an in-house newsroom where our staff writers report on the key issues of our time 365-days a year. We do not accept submissions for news coverage or freelance reporting projects. We do, however, accept outside submissions for our Opinion page, where we publish timely and original guest essays, analyses, and op-eds with a progressive perspective on a daily basis.

We welcome opinion submissions from contributors around the world. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with our content and the following submission guidelines before sending us your work. Submissions that do not conform to the guidelines will not be considered.

We are a small non-profit and cannot pay for submissions at this time. We also do not engage in extended editorial exchanges with contributors, so we assume that all submissions are publication-ready. If any changes or edits other than small typos or style adjustments are deemed necessary, we will verify those suggested changes in advance of publication.

Common Dreams operates with a small staff, but with a short turnaround. We apologize that we do not have the resources to respond to each submission individually. We regret that we are only able to publish a small portion of the submissions we receive. If you do not see your submitted piece published within a few days, you can assume we did not have a timely or appropriate place for it. You are welcome to resubmit at any time.

To submit an opinion article for publication, please adhere to the following guidelines:

Opinion Submissions Should Be:

• Offered with a unique, timely, and progressive perspective.
• Composed as original opinion or analysis.
• Appealing to a national and international audience.
• Written with authority on the subject matter.
• Concise: please limit submission to between 800 and 1,100 words, though we sometimes publish essays that are shorter or longer.

Format

• Proofread. Please only submit single articles that are in "final draft" form. Pitches, partial submissions, or multi-part articles will not be considered.
• Please do not use HTML coding in your submission
• Please include a suggested headline and subhead, though understand editors will have final say on these decisions.
• References/support material must appear as embedded hyperlinks (How to: Word docs / Google docs) within the article. Please no footnotes or endnotes.

Submitting Process

• Submissions should be sent as a shared Google Document or Word document as attachments via email.
• Subject line of your email should follow this formula: "Submission + last name(s) + Article title or Subject Matter)
• In addition to the attached Google or Word doc, please copy the text of the article into the body of your email.
• If we have not previously published your work, please provide a short (one or two-sentence) bio and a recent square headshot/photo (approx. 250x250 pixels). You may include your Twitter handle if you'd like us to include it.
• Email to: submissions@commondreams.org

Opinion Editor is Olivia Rosane: olivia@commondreams.org
Managing Editor is Jon Queally: jon@commondreams.org

Please note that all submissions are subject to an editorial review process, proofing, and possible headline change.

Any work published by Common Dreams will be published under a Creative Commons 3.0 license and may be republished and shared across the internet.

We receive many more submissions than we are able to publish. Unfortunately, due to the high volume, we are unable to respond to questions on why we did not choose any specific submission.

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Common Dreams is a trusted NewsGuard-validated news website receiving a 100% rating for adhering to all of its standards of credibility and transparency.

Contact: editor@commondreams.org

Also, see:

• Contact Us
• Corrections & Updates
• Ethics Policy
• Fact-Checking Policy
• Republishing Our Work
• Ownership & Funding
• Submission Guidelines