By The People, For the People
Editorial Guidelines for Citizen Journalists ■ The Local Paper is a free weekly community newspaper that welcomes the contributions from volunteers. ‘Citizen journalists’ are welcome to send reports and photographs for publication in The Local Paper - in print and online. These reports help the community to stay in touch, and to promote local organisations including sporting clubs. It’s a great way to promote. No money changes hands. There is no charge for the space to promote your organisation’s activites. No money is paid to the volunteer for their words and images. ■ The Local Paper has editorial guidelines for its Citizen Journalists. Names and faces are the key elements to good communication. Be factual and accountable. Avoid expressing opinions in your reports. It is important that the material you submit is verifiable.
Volunteering your services ■ We do not pay for editorial or photographic submissions; we are a community-based newspaper, all submissions are made in goodwill. All photos are subject to editing. By submitting the photos to us, you agree that the copyright of the photos is transferred to Local Media Pty Ltd, and that ongoing permission is granted for the reports and photographs to appear in the its publications, electronically, and in other forms. Contributors are not employees or agents of Local Media Pty Ltd. and therefore have no authority to make statements on the company’s behalf. Insurance coverage is the personal responsibility of honorary reviewers, contributors and photographers.
Telling the story in pictures
■ An important part of modern journalism is to tell our stories, not only in words, but also with pictures. “A picture paints a thousand words”. These days, just about everyone is equipped to take good quality photos with their mobile phones. To have your photos included, it’s as simple as taking the photos, and emailing them to editor@local paper.com.au
● Ash Long, Editor editor@LocalPaper.com.au Mobile: 0450 399 932 Please double-check on the spelling of all names. If you don’t know, please ask. Incorrect spelling exposes the writer and the newspaper to ridicule. Police, Council and Government (Local, State and Federal) stories are usually the province of our Editorial team of journalists. We encourage our Citizen Journalists to focus on club, organisation and community news. We prefer to encourage and foster community volunteers, rather than to criticise them. We prefer a positive approach to our local journalism. We seek to attribute the source of all contributed material. This includes a tagline in all written and photographic reports. All material submitted is subject to vetting and editing by our editorial team. The best reports are simple, direct and unambiguous. They are objectively written and presented. They waste no words on padding.
■ A vital part of telling stories with pictures is to have a named caption with every photo. We need to properly introduce every one in our photos by first name AND surname. We do not publish photos that only give the first name. Seek permission of parents/guardians for the use of images and full names of children aged under 18. ■ We need photos submitted by JPG file, within 24 hours of the event. We are a newspaper, and events that are weeks old are of no interest to our readers. ■ Photos need to be at 300 dpi. Turn the date stamp off. The photos need to be sharp, clear, in-focus. We like photos to be close-up, usually two people per shot. The people need to be close together. ■ No duplicates please: in other words, each person is only to appear in one photo. Any duplicates are automotically dumped. ■ General editorial deadline is 5pm Fridays. Sports editorial deadline is 10am Mondays.
Editorial Guidelines for Citizen Journalists
Consistency in our style ■ Opening paragraph. The ideal lead par is 19 words, and summarises the major points of the story that you wish to convey ■ Names. We always use first names AND surnames. ■ Addresses. St, Rd, Ave, Pde, Ct, Pl, Blvd, Cres., cnr (for corner). ■ Weights and Measures. We use metric measures. Kg and kms. Our style is kmh (for kilometres per hour). ■ Times and dates. Our style is 7.30pm, Thursday, September 23. Mention of the year is superfluous unless more than 12 months have elapsed. ■ Words and numerals. Spell out figures one to nine. Use numerals thereafter. Never begin a sentence or paragraph with numerals unless they are spelt out. We use numerals only in sports results. ■ Percentages. When giving percentages use numerals throughout 3 per cent, 25 per cent. ■ Quotation Marks. “Only use these if the person actually said those words,” remarked the Editor. ■ Acronyms. Please avoid them. For example, spell out RYLA to say Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. ■ Ages. We refer to Peter Smith, 9, of Main St, Yea. ■ Sports Results. Our style for a football scores is 12.9 (81). ■ Punctuation. The fullstop is the cleanest and most effective punctuation mark. If you are not sure whether to use a comma, a semi-colon or a series of dots, try a full stop. You’ll be surprised how well it works. ■ Tenses. Tenses should always agree within the one sentence. Thus, “he said he might go home”, not “He said he may go home”, because “might” is past tense and agrees with “said”.
Tips for contributors
■ The Local Paper is a family newspaper. We are invited into people’s homes and we are read by children as well as adults. We avoid smut. Good taste should prevail in all writing and news content. We should never be ashamed of anything we publish. ■ Our business is words. We must make it our business use them properly. These guidelines are about the way we use words, and their necessary companions, punctuation marks, in our publication. The three cardinal rules for newspaper still apply: be right, be quick, be brief. ■ Be right - The first rule of newspapers. There is seldom an excuse for getting something wrong in copy and then publishing it. Check, and check again, and then if still in doubt remember the old adjunct to “be right”: “If in doubt, leave out.” ■ Be quick - Our readers live in online times. There is no way we can allow reports in our newspapers to be stale and to be weeks old. We would lose potential readers. We can’t afford it, so please learn edition deadlines, and try to meet them. ■ Be brief - Make it easy for our Editor. Please don’t clutter your report with unnecessary words and phrases. Think about what you are writing and the way you are writing it and seek to tighten it. Let’s have lean, uncluttered writing in our reports. ■ Sentences are more liekly to be clear if they are short and communicate only one idea, or closely connected ideas. This does not mean that all sentences should be “simple”, with one subject and one predicate (“Two gunmen robbed a bank today”). They may be compound, complex or compound complex, and any good story should contain a micture of sentence types to give it rhythm and variety. Long confusing sentences should be simplified by splitting them into two or more shorter sentences. The full stop is a great help to both clarity and sanity. ■ Active Voice. Apart from giving more “life” to a story, the active voice also saves space. “Police arrested Smith” says clearly and crisply in three
words what “Smith was arrested by police” says ponderously and fully in five words. Thus, “A meeting is scheduled to be held to be held by the committee next week” becomes “The committee will meet next week. Six words instead of 12, and straight to the point. Sometimes the passive is better, usually when a ‘name’ is involved. “Scott Morrison was kicked by a kangaroo today”, rather than “A kangaroo kicked Scott Morrison today”, because Mr Morrison’s name catches the eye more than “a kangaroo”. ■ Officialese. Watch for the passive in officialese. Government and business statements are rife with it - and with jargon - and must almost always be rewritten. Officialdom would have turned “We will fight them on the beaches: into “The shoreline is the location at which the enemy will be engaged in combat in attempts to finalise their deployment in this country”.
Be positive
■ Few things deter readers as much as negatives, especially in intros. They do not want to be told what is not, they want to be told what is. There are positive words which can replace negative ideas: “The project was not successful” becomes “The project failed.” “The company says it will not proceed with the plan” becomes “The company abandoned the plan.” ■ Avoid cliches “like the plague”. We do not want cliches, overworked or wasteful words. Let us be as straight forward as possible. ■ For 95 per cent of cases or base authority for spelling is the Oxford English Dictionary. ■ There is still a place for the striking phrase or the novel approach. There is certainly room for strong verbs and nouns, fresh adjectives and adverbs (used sparingly), varied punctuation, rhythm, precision and brevity. ■ It is not intended, editorially, to discourage individuality.