Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "frequently asked questions"

Writing format and style

2008-12-07T01:25:13Z

Format and writing style is about more than just looks. How you format your writing might make the difference between people reading your article or passing it by.

One of the trickiest parts of news writing is keeping things brief and to the point.

Stylistically this means paragraphs that don't exceed two sentences. While it seems excessive, if you read any major newspaper you will realize that this rule is nearly universal.

By adding whitespace an article seems more readable; huge paragraphs deter readers.

Good grammar, spelling and punctuation, is another important part of having your work read. Proofread your work, or have another person proofread it.

If you have no one to proofread your work we, at The Sacramento Press, will proofread your work for you. To do this, simply send us your article at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

We will edit your work and send you the edited version. Our goal is not to change your message, just to make it the best version of your work possible.

There are many more style guidelines that we abide by here at The Sacramento Press and in the next update I will post a list of the most important of those guidelines.

What is "Beta"?

2008-10-14T08:56:58Z

"Beta" is a little bit of shop talk I guess. In our case it refers to the release state of our web software application. We built our online newspaper platform from scratch. Beta just means that our initial release has not been tested enough to be considered 100% robust and sturdy.

We will be "beta testing" our application by launching it in a specific neighborhood. We call that neighborhood our "beta" area because, like the application, we are just testing our processes in preparation for a full launch.

Our "beta" neighborhood is the quadrant of downtown between the Sacramento river, Capitol City Freeway, 16th Street, and N street. This area includes the neighborhood of Southside Park, part of Richmond Grove, and part of the R street corridor.

As a user, and especially as a writer, you may experience technical problems or poor site design. We need you to help us by giving us constructive suggestions to make your experience better. We are flexible and we know that there will be some issues. Please help us make The Sacramento Press the very best site for local news and information.

How do I become a writer?

2008-10-14T08:52:17Z

Its easier than you think. If you want to be a writer, sign up or log in and click the "write!" button on the top of the page. Now you can sign up to become a Community Contributor.

Our journalism support department offers a manual, seminars, and workshops on becoming a better writer and journalist. The more workshops you attend the better your credibility with us and the more likely our editing staff will place your work on the front page. For more information contact journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Please pay close attention to our ethical code and disclose your biases. Our watchword is transparency because it helps us balance the news we report on the front page.

Start by covering one story. Just think of an itch that you need to scratch on a topic you know really well. A lot of you may know about the music scene, and a lot of you can write great reviews of local restaurants. But if you want to get on our front page, you are better off focusing on a story that really isn't being told elsewhere in the local media. The triumphs of your softball team or that mysterious vacant mansion down the street might be great stories. Write what you know and become an expert on your neighborhood in the process.

Pay attention to the conversations going on in your storyline. Use your audience to guide your next article and ask them questions when you don't know the answer. Trust that they are just like you and want to build a better neighborhood.

Finally, we want to support you in every way possible. We will help set up peer editing groups if you want the perspectives of other Community Contributors before publishing a headline. We have a network of resource providers in city government and private institutions who can help you find the answers to some of your tougher questions. In some cases we can even get you a press pass to an event.

Take the plunge. Click the "write!" button, become a Community Contributor, and cover a story with us.

What kind of gatekeeping do we do?

2008-10-14T08:36:54Z

We do not prohibit content based on its viewpoint. We do however select stories that will go on our front page and our section pages. That editorial decision is primarily based on the quality of the content written. We also rely on the community to help label offensive content, spam and redundant content. When identified, said content will be removed by staff at the Sacramento Press.

Do we fact check?

2008-10-14T08:26:01Z

At this time we do not fact check all of our community contributors' content. We will fact check what is written in house by our editors and interns and We do provide resources to our Community Contributors to allow for them to find the most factually correct information available. Should a reader find that a fact is incorrect we have the ability to take down the offending content or issue a retraction.

Can I write whatever I want?

2008-10-14T07:55:28Z

Yes and no. You have the ability on our site to post anything to the site without it being reviewed. If you violate our terms of use, your content will be removed. If you continually violate or terms of use your account will be suspended. If you write content that is not in line with the mission statement of The Sacramento Press, "To be the most comprehensive source of local news and information in the Sacramento area," your content will never be featured and will dwell in the bowels of our site. For instance we do not want people's thoughts on life. A life diary is better suited to a blogging site like Blogspot or Blogger.

Additionally we do not want people writing about national or state issues. There are many outlets for that news and we are not one of them. The theory behind our paper is that Sacramentans are often experts about local topics that they deal with on a daily basis. So, please be from the Sacramento area if you plan on writing for our paper. Our focus is on local news. Write local, and write what you know. One exception to this is creative content. While we still want you to be local to the Sacramento Metropolitan Area we will definitely try and feature some creative content. It used to be a newspaper staple to feature serialized creative content and we would love to revive that tradition.

How do we make money?

2008-10-14T07:51:33Z

We sell advertising. However, you will not see any pop up ads or ugly flyovers on our site. And you won't see lists and lists of button adds or text adds crammed on the sides and bottoms of our pages. All of us at the Sacramento Press use our own site and rule number one is if it looks bad to us then it will look bad to you.

Our advertising is based not on the number of eyeballs we can distract or the number of clicks we can generate. It is based on the privilege of sponsoring the best stories and conversations about Sacramento. Our advertisers want to be associated with you, not distract you!

We respect that our advertisers keep us in business and sponsor your great writing. So we do not try to hide their ads away. We are working to create a balance that is respectful of our readers and our advertisers.

We built our advertising management site from scratch and we are very proud of it. We give advertisers the ability to target their ads to the right content and even avoid content which might not be in line with their values. It is our ultimate goal for our partners to sponsor the stories and conversations that match their values and their unique commitments to our community.

We also enroll each partner in our Do The Right Thing Program (DRTP). Five percent of our revenue from their advertisements goes to a local charity of their choice. And we try to link advertisers with the right charities and encourage them to give on their own. Our community is an ecosystem of business, government, non-profits, and individuals. We aim to serve each component of our community and bind us all together. We achieve this not only through our media outlet, but also our business practices.

Please tell these local partners that you appreciate their sponsorship of these important stories. Forget about clicking the link, walk down and thank them in person.

Storylines sound like a fancy name for blogs. What is the difference?

2008-10-14T07:29:22Z

There are three main differences. The first is not technical. Right now storylines are usually written by one author. He/she is the author for each article in the storyline just like most blogs. However, we ask each author to tell just one story over time rather than posting all sorts of interesting tidbits. While blogs can go all over the place, we ask our writers to stick to one story and cover it well.

The second difference is technical. Our storylines are dynamic. Editors can combine any series of articles into a storyline. This kind of editorial control is really great. And because we built our system with this kind of flexibility in mind from the start, we have an amazing content manegement system.

Third, intent is very important. Our intent is to enable the best stories and the the best conversations. We work very hard to elevate both along side each other. We believe that each are equally important. We use many tools that blogging platforms use. We use many tools that great forums use. We have created an outstanding layout system so that editors can make the whole site look just like a newspaper. We are using the very best tools from all over the web to build the very best site for Sacramento. While the tools bear some resemblance, the most important difference is that in the right hands and with the right intent, these tools become great concepts for enabling people to tell stories and have conversations about important local issues that are not being covered by the local media.

What is a storyline?

2008-10-14T07:08:54Z

Ben, the cofounder of the Sacramento Press gets asked this question about 20 times a day, so below is the answer that he gave for this question:

Let me start with a different question: what is an article? In printed newspapers articles are the basic unit of content, it is how a newspaper tells a story. An article can only be a certain length because there is only so much room on the page. And if a writer wants to post a history of the topic covered, link to older news items, or follow up the progress of the story? Well, tough luck. Traditional papers are constrained by space and time and try to tell the whole story in any given article. So if you want to start an online newspaper, you could start with that same basic unit, the article.

But when we first designed The Sacramento Press, Geoff and I wanted to start from scratch. We wanted to enable writers to tell stories without the constraints of space or time. We wanted to establish a conversation with readers. So we came up with a new basic unit, the storyline.

We ask our writers to cover a topic and follow the progress of the story. We ask writers to find the history of the story, and cover developments over time. Each post can be treated like a separate article, but if you click the green "storyline " button on the right you will see other parts of the story like histories and updates. Now you can more easily get the whole story over time and drill down to greater depth about a topic.

We also took a different approach with comments. Geoff and I noticed that comments on small blog sites tended to be more civil than on large sites like newspapers. We believe that writers must be active and responsive to the conversation about their story. If comments are disconnected then people have little incentive to be civil, but if the comments represent a true conversation with a writer, the the quality of the comments improve. Better yet, the audience for local stories often knows more collectively than the writer. Our contributors want to learn from you and let the audience guide their next article. People love to tell stories and we love to have conversations. Commenting is a way of joining these great conversations and when writers are responsive and inclusive, the conversation will drive better and better reporting.

We wanted our initial product to look a lot like a traditional newspaper to the casual reader, so we scaled back on some of our more fanciful ideas about how storylines might look and act, but by clicking on the green "storyline" button you will get a peek at the power of thinking outside the box and creating a new basic unit of content for The Sacramento Press.

So that's it! On to another question and remember you can always comment below and continue the conversation if you still don't quite get what a storyline is.