The Foreign Service Journal, October 2005

ing it in the covering note. Re- member that it’s a waste of time to send a pitch and then wait for an okay to write the piece. Unless you’re real- ly well-known already, they won’t respond. So go ahead and write the op-ed and submit it as a ready-to-go item. Include a few sentences in the cover note explaining why that particular newspaper should want to publish your contribution. And in addition to attaching the column in a separate Word file, take the extra time to copy the entire text (with title, byline and, at the end, a line or two of bio- graphical material) into the body of the e-mail. Armed with these tips, do take the time to take a stand and share your opinion in 700 words or less with the masses. Admittedly, you won’t get rich, as op-eds pay somewhere between nothing and several hundred bucks each. And no, your commentary proba- bly won’t save the world. But it could limit the damage to it that the politi- cians inflict as they promote them- selves while maintaining they are serv- ing the national interest. So do it for your country, just as you did in dedi- cating your career to government ser- vice — even if in the end it means nothing more than having the chance to say you told them so. n Dennis Jett, an FSO from 1972 to 2000, was ambassador to Mozam- bique and Peru and DCM in Malawi and Liberia. He also served in Argentina and Israel, at the NSC and in the State Department. Following his retirement, he assumed his current position as dean of the International Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is the author of Why Peacekeeping Fails (Palgrave, 2001), and has published over 60 opinion pieces in major newspapers. O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 F S K N O W - H O W u Remember the many good local and regional papers around the country, particularly outside major metropolitan areas.