New West Unfiltered Instructions
Unfiltered Blogging is an integral part of what we’re trying to do here at New West. The idea stems from our philosophy that an educated, engaged citizenship will be instrumental in this evolution of the Rocky Mountain West we’re always talking about. The idea is that you as the reader have access to much of the information that we as journalists do and there is no reason you can’t be a writer, a reporter, a pontificator or a blogger yourself. By empowering the public with a medium to speak their minds, or report on the world around them, we are hoping to expand the media offerings here in the West. Similarly, in a world where sense of community is waning, we also want to create online hubs where readers can foster a neighborly discussion of the issues at hand, all the while connecting themselves with each other and their sense of place.How to become an Unfiltered Blogger:
First, you’ll have to register here to become a member of the site. This is easy and we’ll only ask a few questions, we promise. If you're already registered on the site, no worries, you're already in and ready to become an Unfiltered Blogger.
Then, you can start blogging on your own by finding the Unfiltered Blog page of your choice. The site is structured so that each topic has its very own Unfiltered Blog page, i.e. at the bottom of the right-hand side of the Missoula page, you’ll find the Unfiltered Blog page, or, once you’re in the Growth & Public Policy page, you will find the link to take you to that corresponding Unfiltered Blog.
Once onto those pages, click your way into blogging through the "Contribute to New West Unfiltered" link.
How to post a story:
When click the “contribute" link, you will see a template for posting your story. The first box says “headline." This is where you put your headline. Give some thought to the headline as this is the main thing that will pull people in to read your story. The next box says “short post." This is what will appear on the main Unfiltered Blog page. If you have a long story you should continue it in the “long post," which is what people will see if they click “more" from the main page. If you use the long post you should repeat what’s in the short post in the long post box, so that the long post page shows your whole story. Clear as mud? Get in touch with us at info@newwest.net if you have questions.
How to become a superb Unfiltered Blogger:
Each day, our editors will be scanning and enjoying the Unfiltered Blog pages and if we see something we like, we’ll bump it up to one of our main pages or link to it in one of our blog posts. If we find an Unfiltered Blogger we think is doing a superb job writing and expanding our views on the issues we’re covering, we may just give the Unfiltered Blogger access to blog directly to one of our main pages. On that note, we are recruiting professional writers and bloggers to head up some of our new city and topic sites as well as looking for insightful, witty and informed contributors. To learn more about how to work for New West click here.
What you can do:
Write about anything you want, but try to stay on the topic of the page you are on. For instance, if you’re on the Unfiltered Blog page of the Business & the New Economy section, try to blog about that topic. If you want to blog about Salt Lake City, go to the Unfiltered Blog page of that site.
Rant or rave, structure you stories, weave a narrative, we don’t give a hoot as long as you write. But, we do like to see writers who bring us new information about newsy kinds of things or give a different perspective of something going on in town. The universe of people who care about your personal political opinions, for example, is probably pretty small. The more fresh information or informed commentary you can bring, the more readers you will have.
Link to other cool sites. We think of our site as “adding value" to the news that is out there, so don’t hesitate to link your readers to interesting stuff on the Internet, with the caveat that you give credit where credit is due. If you’re linking to the Denver Post, let people know, “according to" or “today in the Denver Post." You can hyperlink by using simple html code. (Don’t worry, it scares me too, but it is quite simple.) A basic hyperlink to link to New West would look like this: <a href="http://www.newwest.net">New West</a>. And it would show up as: New West
Format your text with simple html. The basics are:
Italics = <i>words</i>
Bold = <b>words</b>
Underline = <u>words</u>
Block Quotes = <bq>words</bq>
What you can’t do:
When you signed up as a member, you did so under our Terms of Service and any violation of these will result in a you being banned from posting on New West.
The Terms of Service are heavy on the legalese, but we don’t have much choice about that. There are a few key things to keep in mind:
- Don’t engage in personal attacks. Not only is it rude and contrary to the spirit of intelligent conversation, it could potentially subject you to libel action if you make untrue and damaging statements about somebody. You are responsible for your words, not us. There is a big difference between attacking someone’s opinion or arguing with them and attacking them personally. If you’d like to discuss this issue further, please get in touch with us.
- Don’t use other peoples’ words without permission. The copyright laws protect most writing from being used without authorization. The “fair use" provisions of the copyright laws allow you to quote from another person or publication’s writing for the purpose of commentary or education. So it’s fine to refer to a story and quote a few lines. It’s not fine to take a whole article from a newspaper and publish it. It is also very important to attribute anything you are quoting or paraphrasing to the source; you wouldn’t want to be trying to pass other people’s work off as your own.
- Don’t use vulgar language. We’re not prudes, and we enjoy our occasional curse words as much as the next guy. But foul language rarely contributes much to an informed conversation.
- Don’t expect us to pay you for your work. This probably goes without saying, but in posting on New West you are giving us the right to publish and use your words. That doesn’t mean we own them (you do), and it doesn’t mean you can’t publish them anywhere else in any form that you would like (they are, after all, your words). But it does mean that we have the right to use your words in any way we like (you did, after all, post them on our site). Nobody will be compensated unless they have an explicit written agreement with us.
Again, if you’ve got questions on any of this, feel free to connect with us at info@newwest.net.
