Get featured in Calgary Herald

What the Calgary Herald is

The Calgary Herald is the city's Postmedia news title, published at calgaryherald.com and in print, with an ePaper replica of the print edition for subscribers. Its site describes it as a division of Postmedia Network Inc. If you want to get featured in the Calgary Herald, there are three practical routes: send a news tip to the newsroom, submit an opinion column or letter under the paper's published rules, or work with an agency such as DNA that develops a feature with you and manages the placement.

The right route depends on what you have. Genuine local news suits a tip. A clear argument about a Calgary or Alberta issue suits the opinion pages. A story about your business, expertise or work in the city suits a feature, which is where DNA does most of its work.

What the Calgary Herald covers

The section menus show the paper's priorities. News covers local news, crime, politics, national and world stories. Business includes Energy, Local Business, Real Estate, Technology and Small Business, alongside Postmedia's Financial Post feeds such as FP Markets and FP Money. Sports follows the Calgary Flames, the Calgary Stampeders, Spruce Meadows, soccer, golf and curling. Opinion carries columnists, editorials and letters. Arts and Life cover local arts, music, books, health, food, homes, parenting and travel.

Energy and real estate are standing sections rather than occasional topics, so stories from those industries have a natural home. A lifestyle or consumer story needs a clear Calgary angle to sit comfortably in Life.

How to submit a story to the Calgary Herald

The Herald's contact-the-newsroom page lists a news tips phone line and the address submit@calgaryherald.com for tips and information. The same page names the editors responsible for City and Business; Editorial, Opinion, Arts and Life; Sports; Digital; and Homes, so a pitch can go to the desk that fits. Keep a tip short: what happened, why it matters locally and who can speak to it.

A tip is a suggestion, not a submission. The newsroom decides whether to follow it up, and a pitch that reads as promotion is unlikely to become a story.

How to submit letters to the editor and opinion columns

The Herald publishes its own guide, How to submit a column or a letter to the Calgary Herald, linked from the Opinion menu as Send us an Opinion Column or Letter. Letters to the editor go to letters@calgaryherald.com, should be 100 words at most and must include your full name, address and phone number for the paper's files. Anyone can write one.

Opinion columns go to oped.calgaryherald@postmedia.com in the body of an email rather than as an attachment. The guide asks for pieces close to 620 words and says there is no need to query first. Other rules on that page:

• The piece must be an opinion or argument, not a general news feature or commercial promotion.
• The text must not be generated by AI, in part or in full.
• Disclose any personal involvement with the issue or group you write about.
• Do not send work submitted or published elsewhere, open letters or petitions.
• No anonymous pieces or pseudonyms, and the Herald retains copyright on what it publishes.

The paper says it reads every opinion piece but cannot print or post every submission, cannot give detailed feedback on rejections, and publishes accepted columns mostly online.

What makes a strong piece for the Calgary Herald

The Herald's guidance for columns is a useful test for any story: a clear point, concrete examples, plain language and something original. For a feature, that means a specific Calgary or Alberta angle, real numbers or named examples, and a reason a local reader would care now. A homebuilder explaining what is changing in the city's housing market, an energy services firm describing new work in the province, or a clinic with practical advice for Calgarians all fit the sections above. A national story with Calgary added as an afterthought does not.

How the process works with DNA

We start with a short call to understand your business and find the angle that suits the Herald's sections. We then write the feature to the paper's standard and send you the draft. You approve every word before anything goes live, and we manage the placement from there.

Opinion columns are a separate route. They follow the Herald's own rules set out above and go in under your name through the op-ed address.

How long it takes

Expect weeks rather than days. Finding the angle and agreeing the draft takes time, and the Herald notes that it may revise a proposed publication date because of breaking news. We do not promise a date or an outcome.