Ask the Editor: Why We Won’t Publish Your Cat’s Op-Ed

The editor answers the submission questions that arrive most often, including the one about the cat

The editor of prat.uk receives, on a typical week, forty unsolicited submissions, twenty questions about the submission process and one op-ed from a cat. The cat’s name changes. The cat’s position on the monarchy does not. This column, which the editor agreed to write on the understanding that it would be edited by Emily Cartwright and that the train would be allowed, answers the questions that arrive most.

Why won’t you publish my cat’s op-ed?

Because the cat is a spokesperson, and the paper invents its own. The op-ed, which has now arrived under six names and from four addresses, argues that the household should be reorganised around the cat and cites the cat’s long service. It is well written. It is also an opinion, and the paper does not run opinions except in the letters, where they are the readers’ responsibility. The cat is welcome to write a letter. Bethan has said she will consider it for Letter of the Week if it includes a dateline.

How do I submit?

Through the process described on Authors and Contributors, which is: send it. There is no form. There is no pitch stage. Send the finished piece, with a real place in the first line and an invented person in the third, and it will be read by whoever is on tip reading and passed up if it survives being read aloud in a flat voice. Most things do not survive being read aloud in a flat voice. This is the test and it is the only one.

What are you looking for?

Something that happened, made slightly larger, described by someone who has stopped being surprised. The subtitle should promise less than the article delivers. The joke should not be explained. The spokesperson should have a title one word longer than necessary. If the piece could run in the counterpart with the spelling changed, it is not for us; if it could run in a real paper with the spokesperson removed, it is close.

What are you not looking for?

Jokes you have already told at a wedding. Lists. Anything in which the writer appears. Anything about a town that does not exist, because Morag will find out. Anything that announces what it is in the first paragraph, because the style guide bans the words and Emily bans the writers. And anything about trains, because that section is taken.

Do you pay?

Yes, modestly, on publication, at a rate the commercial team describes as competitive and the writers describe as a sandwich. Contributors who are published three times are invited to the Christmas drinks, which have been announced annually since 2009 and held twice, and both times Harper Thames organised them, so the odds improve if she is in the building.

How long does it take?

A reply within two weeks. The reply will be short. If it says yes, the piece goes to the exaggeration desk, the quotes department and the fact-checkers, in that order, and comes back changed. If it says no, it will not say why, because the reasons are the ones above and you have now read them.

Can I write under a pseudonym?

Yes. Several staff do, and one of them has a name that sounds like a punchline and is real. The only requirement is that the name be registered with the quotes department so that it is not accidentally issued to a spokesperson. This has happened once, and the writer concerned was quoted in her own story as Deputy Director of Bench Affairs, and has not let the department forget it.

The cat, again

A final note. The cat’s most recent submission arrived with a dateline. It was a real town. The piece was read aloud at the tip reading and survived. It has been sent to the regional desk, where Morag has said it is too easy and has asked for a roundabout. The cat has been told. The editor regards this as the process working, and would like the record to show that the train was mentioned only once, in the headline of the section that was cut.

One more, from the archive

Marjorie has asked that a question from 1996 be included, since it arrives again every few years and the answer has not changed. It asks whether the paper would consider running a serious piece, without a spokesperson, without the exaggeration desk, simply reporting a thing that happened. The answer then and now is that the paper does this most days, that the readers cannot tell, and that this is the point. A reader in Hull once checked a story, found everything real but the official, and wrote to say he had never felt so respected by a newspaper. Carys keeps the letter. Send that, and we will run it, and we will not tell you which parts we changed, because we will not have changed any.