The Sacramento Press’ “To Catch an Error” contest has ended for the month of November. We are excited to announce our winner, Marion Millin ! Millin received a total of 54 points for catching minor spelling and grammar errors in stories by community contributors and one of our staff reporters. Thanks to everyone who entered! If you missed last month’s contest, it’s time to start hunting again. Beginning today, we will wipe the slate clean and start our December contest. December’s winner will receive a complimentary lunch for two at Zocalo. Due to the New Year’s Eve holiday, the deadline for entries will be midnight on Dec. 30. See below for complete rules. If you have any feedback or

“The most important part of review writing is to tell a story,” said Nick Miller, associate editor at Sacramento News & Review and panelist at Wednesday evening’s review writing workshop, hosted by The Sacramento Press. You should make your reader feel as though they were at the event by including specific details about what you saw, he added. Along with Miller, the workshop’s other two panelists, Rachel Leibrock of Sacramento News & Review and Carla Meyer of The Sacramento Bee, spoke from personal experience about how to effectively write a review of music, food or film. The panel also fielded questions from the 20-person audience in regards to writing style, etiquette and editing. The

Today at noon, The Sacramento Bee's Allen Pierleoni will host a live chat with Rick Mindermann of Corti Bros. and John Paul Khoury of Preferred Meats, Inc. Visit sacbee.com/live from noon - 1 p.m. to ask questions relating to "What's new in the Sacramento food scene?" The live chat is a preview of what will be discussed at Table Talk Sacramento, April 13. Read more about Table Talk Sacramento here. Click here to go to the Bee's Live Chat page.

Jeffrey Callison, host of Insight Capitol Public Radio’s popular morning live news magazine, was interviewed by The Sacramento Press Editor in Chief David Watts Barton Sunday Evening. The interview was part of the The Sacramento Living Library, curated by Time Tested Books’ Peter Keat and hosted by “Midtown Monthly” editor Tim Foster. Barton had kicked off The Sacramento Living Library 2010 in January, interviewing Tower Records founder Russ Solomon. More on The Sacramento Living Library and previous interviews is available at Time Tested Books’ website. Insight premiered in July 2009 as a half-hour afternoon news magazine. Then the KXJZ news director had been invited by Station Manager

Fact-checking is extremely important, for both writers and editors. It protects a publication’s credibility and prevents libel lawsuits, according to Patch.com editor Clare Noonan during her fact-checking and research seminar at The Sacramento Press Tuesday night. “You have to ask yourself if your source is reliable,” she said. “And nothing on the Internet should be your only source.” She warned that fact-checking is important for a number of reasons. “If you can’t get the basics right, your readers won’t read another word you say,” she said. There are a number of areas where mistakes are often found, including spelling errors, war dates, locations, ages and names of businesses. Some

In case you missed the June 22 Paying for Content panel put on by The Sacramento Bee and The Sacramento Press, you will have the chance to see it on Access Sacramento, Channel 17 at the following dates and times: Sunday, July 4 at 10 p.m. (and repeated Monday at 2 p.m.) Sunday, July 11 at 5 p.m. (and repeated Monday at 9 a.m.) To read the recap, written by Agnus-Dei Farrant, click here.

The Sacramento Press is getting bigger digs. The home of the unique daily news website will more than double in size with its expansion in the historic Railway Express Agency Building, next to the downtown train station. Construction work began a week ago to link the existing 2,300-square-foot space to two adjoining groundfloor suites. Set in an industrial-vibe loft, the newsroom and supporting departments will fill roughly 5,500 square feet when finished. On Thursday, staff began moving desks and equipment to make way for the renovation. The Sacramento Press is an evolving experiment with community journalism. The online paper uses a small professional editorial staff, interns and a la

As the influential “Fourth Branch of Government” the Press impacts our understanding of all topics. So how is the media here in Sacramento addressing the topic of sustainability? Attendees of the next Sacramento Sustainability Forum (SSF) will have the opportunity to ask that question, find out what key members of our local media are doing themselves to be more sustainable, and learn about how these news leaders view the sustainability of their industry. The Sacramento Sustainability Forum has assembled a panel of local media leaders that includes: Joe Barr, News Director – Capital Public Radio, Ben Ilfeld, Co-Founder and Operations Manager – The Sacramento Press, Michael Sanford, VP of C

You can help us make Sacramento a stronger community by contributing to The Sacramento Press. Our website is free and open to the public. To become a community contributor, all you have to do is: 1. Sign up by clicking the button at the top of the page. 2. Then, once you are signed in, you will see a "write" button at the top of the page. Just click the "write" button, fill out a form and watch a tutorial. 3. Title your Storyline. This is the topic you intend to write about and it helps tie your articles about the same topic together. 4. You can start writing immediately inside the browser or copy and paste your article from a word processor. You can save your draft on our system and come

Over a month ago I asked everyone: what is wrong with The Sacramento Press? It was an attention grabbing headline, but more importantly it opened an honest conversation between all of us who run and write and read The Press. Now I am asking for broader feedback: tell us what you like and don't like about The Sacramento Press. Give me suggestions for our operations, marketing and sales. The last time I asked we got feedback that helped us build out a better help section, fix bugs, add features, and even begin a path towards changing our legal agreements. We are always looking to improve our site and operations. We don't have all the answers, but I hope we continue to ask the right quest

That didn't take too long. Apparently there is a link to the whole Sacramento Business Journal story about The Sacramento Press. Earlier this morning I reported that the article was hidden behind a pay wall. I just got an email from Nicholas Walsh, Marketing Director of The Sacramento Press with this link to the full Business Journal article. This is a story about all of us: employees, writers, and readers. I want to thank Melanie Turner who wrote the story and Dennis McCoy the photographer.

Today The Sacramento Business Journal has a story about The Sacramento Press. This is a story about all of us readers and writers and I wanted to share it with all of you the moment it went out. But I can only share the first few sentences, click here for the story. Most of the story is blocked unless you have a subscription to the Journal. This is called a pay wall. I don't know how long the story will be stuck behind this pay wall (maybe only today), but when it is full, live, and free on the web I will post an update and a link. I do want to thank Melanie Turner, the author of the story, for her hard work sitting through our ramblings for literally hours. I also want to thank Dennis

From learning journalism basics to photo editing to learning about new Internet technologies The Sacramento Press provides workshops to all of our Community Contributors absolutely free. Our workshops will have food and refreshments at no cost. We are located at the REA building next to the Amtrak building at 5th and I Street. Our goal is keep most workshops to 20 people or less, but to put them on as frequently as possible, starting in the next few weeks. What's the catch? All you have to do is sign up to write for the site. It's just two simple forms and you're in. Then when a workshop is announced just email us for a spot. Why would The Sacramento Press do this? Because we want you

So one night a few months back, I was sitting in traffic on J street and noticed a Chevy Suburban towing a billboard advertising for a soft drink product. I was a little pissed that this vehicle was driving around burning gas and clogging traffic, but it spurred another idea. Build a better way of doing this in a little more responsible way. How do you advertise your product and not annoy people or make them feel like you're creating traffic jams? The solution was to buy an existing product and rework it a little with the help of a signage company. Out of this came a bike trailer and bicycle with custom made "wraps". PLease look at the photographs and notice the complete custom build for

Our office, The Sacramento Press office, is located at 431 I Street right next to the Sacramento Valley Station. We share a parking lot with the train station. Parking at this location is not a pleasant experience. The lot serves as parking for our building, the train station and often times the Sacramento Federal Court house. Most days I choose not to drive to work, firstly because I prefer to use the very convenient light rail option, but secondly because the parking situation is so terrible. By 10 a.m., the lot is almost certainly full and the few remaining spots are almost always 2 hour spots, not suitable for those hoping to park and ride the train. After finally finding a spot mo

The Sacramento Press is an amazing tool. Our development team built the site from the ground up to be clean, fast and useable. But most of all it is a flexible platform. Why the focus on flexibility? Because we know that we will not get everything right the first time around. We know there are bugs. We know there will be usability problems and design flaws. We need your feedback. Our goal is to be responsive and flexible, not perfect. We strive to be always better. Our operations are also designed to be responsive and flexible. We want input on how to make our terms of use better. We need your feedback about our privacy policy. We have posted both as storylines on the site so that you can