2010 GateHouse Media Newsroom Handbook

GateHouse MediaNewsroom Handbook 2010

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I ABOUT THE BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

II SUPPORT AND COMMUNICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6GateHouse News Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6GHNewsroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

ZenDesk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

III THE CONTENT CUBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Culture Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Management development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

• Leadership styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11• SMART writing goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12• Effective feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Personnel development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14• Alternative story formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14• Breakout boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19• Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Product development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22• Newsroom incubator program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

News Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Public service journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

• Story templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Community partner journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29• Profile templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Staff blogging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Community blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Web Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Constant local updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

• The three layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Multimedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61• Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61• Photo galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Reader involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63• Polls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63• Reader callouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65• General recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66• 2010 reader callout calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67• Reader advisory board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69• Social networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70• Other recommendations (linking, maps, live chats) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72• What content goes online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73• Story comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Newsroom Handbook 2010Table of contents

GateHouse Media

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GATEHOUSE MEDIA NEWSROOM HANDBOOK | TABLE OF CONTENTS

Video style guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76• Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76• Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79• Additional video resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

• Equipment recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

IV ZOPE PUBLISHING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Content guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Maximizing your templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

• Top navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83• Secondary navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83• Hot links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• News Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Top stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Carousel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85• Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85• Bottom sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Site services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Community information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Homepage sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Zope publishing how-to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Building your templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

• About your Web site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87• Vertical ad positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87• Add a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88• Create a sidebar for a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89• Add external links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90• Upload stories to Zope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Add links within a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Add links to related stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Bold and italicize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92• Update, revise and correct a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92• Add video to a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93• Publish content to a carousel, highlights or News Now . . . . . . . . . . 94• Add a big package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95• Set your navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96• Create hot links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97• Post breaking news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98• Create promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99• Create a photo gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100• Create a video gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101• Add a poll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

• Create homepage sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103• Set up site services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104• Create a contact page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105• Reposition ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106• Schedule a story for future publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107• Retract/delete a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107• Copy a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107• Manage, moderate comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108• Manage, moderate registered users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108• Give levels of privilege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109• Manage Zope users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

V ADDENDUMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Addendum 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Holiday/event callouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Addendum 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114Online glossary terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Addendum 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Online content: What goes and what doesn’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

• Breaking news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Police blotter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Public record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Meeting stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• General news stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Society and celebrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Sports games and other sports content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Addendum 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

GateHouse Media vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

• Online vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119• Print vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Addendum 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Google Analytics guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

• Accessing the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121• Analyzing the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123• Advertising analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124• Newsroom analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126• Newsroom resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127• Glossary terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

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GATEHOUSE MEDIA NEWSROOM HANDBOOK | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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THE GATEHOUSE NEWS & INTERACTIVE DIVISION’S NEWSROOM HANDBOOK is intended to provide newsrooms of all sizes clear definition on a variety of key print and online strategies.

In this handbook you will find detailed information on the company’s Web and print strategy, recommended productivity benchmarks and resources to accomplish the guidelines.

You also will find information on:

• New details on support and communication resources.

• A detailed daily and weekly schedule for posting Web updates, photo galleries and polls.

• How best to use social media tools to increase traffic and not duplicate content already on your site.

• New guidelines and production benchmarks for staff and community bloggers.

• How to involve readers through 48 callouts for submissions this year.

• New guidelines for alternative story formats.

• New breakout box guidelines.

• Guidelines to determine what should and should not go online.

• Guidelines for managing comments and forums.

• New guidelines for producing consistently formatted video.

Every print and online situation you come across on a daily basis is not necessarily documented in thisguide, but today’s most pressing issues and topics are. You are encouraged to use the support andcommunication page in the back of this handbook to contact corporate staff for topics addressed herethat you want more clarity on or for topics you do not find here.

We hope this handbook provides clarity on the challenges you face in managing your newsrooms.

BRAD DENNISONVice President, News & Interactive Division

DAVID ARKINExecutive Director, News & Interactive Division

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Newsroom Handbook 2010About the book

GateHouse Media

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GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE (www.gatehousenewsservice.com)The news service offers a variety of lifestyle, opinion and niche content to GateHouse newspapers.

Here’s what you can find every week on GateHouse News Service:

MONDAY Health Watch, a weekly health rail; a health column; a health centerpiece; and a health page.You’ll also find Shoestring Living, our weekly frugal column. In season, our NASCAR page posts on Monday.TUESDAY Food for Thought, a weekly food rail; a food column; a food centerpiece; and our food page.WEDNESDAY Family Time, a weekly family rail; Home Help, a weekly home rail; a home and gardencenterpiece; a column; and our home page. In season, you’ll find our Pro Football Weekly pages.THURSDAY Religion News, a weekly religion rail; and Biz Bits, a weekly business rail. Also, our Go Green page posts.FRIDAY Our NIE KidzBuzz page posts for the following week.

Special sections | GateHouse News Service produces dozens of special sections every year. Some ofour more popular sections include Family (monthly), Bride (twice a year), Healthy Living (quarterly)and Boomers (quarterly). You’ll also find other tabs and pages in our niche section. Here is a link to theNiche 2010 schedule: www.ghnewsroom.com/article/gatehouse-2010-niche-schedule.

How to submit content | If you have content you think would be of interest to newspapers outside ofyour area, you can submit it for consideration to GateHouse News Service. When you are publishing a storyto your own Web site, you can click on the area that says: “Submit content to GateHouse News Service.”The content will come to an area for news service staff to review. We will edit and republish shareable con-tent to the news service in the appropriate categories.

What kind of content should be submitted to the news service | When considering submitting astory to the news service first ask yourself if it is of universal interest outside of your community. If it is,below are recommendations on what to submit. These recommendations are based on analysis of thetype of content most newspapers use from the news service.

• Lifestyles: Fitness tips based on interviews with personal trainers at a new workout place in your town (the focus has to be on the fitness tips); food stories, especially recipes; home improvement stories; gardening tips.

• Opinions: National editorials, general-interest columns and editorial cartoons.

• Entertainment: Movie, CD and book reviews, especially if they’re about widely distributed items (self-published books aren’t great because you can’t find them in a local bookstore).

• What not to submit: Don’t submit any AP content because we can’t include that on the news service. Also, only sports stories of national interest should be submitted. Please do not submit high school sports stories.

How to use syndications on your Web site | GateHouse News Service content can flow onto yourWeb site in certain areas to offer your Web viewers even more to read and look at each day. Here aresome recommended categories for syndication to your Web site: movie reviews, music, health, food,home and cartoons. News service syndications are best used as subsections.

How to set up syndicated content in five simple steps:

1. In your Zope site, go to “Choose Section” in the top navigation bar and click on the section you wantthe content to flow into. For example, if you want to subscribe to the news service Health section andhave that content flow into your site's Lifestyle section, click on your Lifestyle section in the “ChooseSection” dropdown menu.2. Click on “Subscriptions” in orange navigation bar.3. Click on the domain you want to subscribe from the “Available Domains” list.4. Click on the right-facing arrow so the category shows up in the “Subscription” list.5. Click “Apply.”The content of that domain will flow onto your site when updated and into the section you selected in step 3.

CONTACT If you have questions about GateHouse News Service and Niche, contact Jean Hodges, national news service editor, at [email protected].

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Newsroom Handbook 2010Support and communication

GateHouse Media

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GHNEWSROOM.COM

GHNewsroom is your one-stop shop for all company online news, tips and resources. You'll find awealth of how-to videos on the basics of posting and managing content in Zope and editing tips andtricks that will help you produce great video reports.

You will find our weekly online update and other online development news on the site, along withcolumns and blogs from the company's Web content team.

Get answers to your online training and development questions by visiting our training section:www.ghnewsroom.com/category/training.

What you can find every week on GHNewsroom:

MONDAY News & Interactive Division video update: Find out what training is planned for the week,along with other important news within the division.TUESDAY Best Photos of the Week: A gallery of some of the best photos GateHouse Media photographers captured the previous week.WEDNESDAY Poll idea: Receive details on a national poll question you could post on your Web site.THURSDAY Video of the Week: This highlights the best video produced every week, with tips from theproducer on how they shot and edited the video.FRIDAY Web Cube Moments of the Week: Highlights of how GateHouse Media newspapers are practicing the Web Cube strategy.

Every day on GHNewsroom

• A gallery of GateHouse Media front pages

• The best front page of the day

How to submitSend a pdf of your front page every day to [email protected] to have your page featured in our gallery.

CONTACT Have something innovative in print or online your newspaper has recently done? Send in-formation about it to [email protected].

ZENDESK (gatehouse.zendesk.com)

If you have technical problems or questions with your Web site, use the ZenDesk for immediate support. Support for more content-related items can be directed to personnel on the next page.

Here are a few examples of technical needs and questions that the ZenDesk is set up for: classified(jobs, real estate and auto), video tributes, domain requests and Zope user-management questions.

Use our support ticket system to get issues for your Web site resolved.

Here’s how your ticket will be addressed once the support staff receives it:

• Those who submit a ticket should expect to learn within an hour who is handling their ticket.

• Tickets are handled by News & Interactive personnel in an effort to get tickets in the hands of contentand technical experts who can address your specific needs. Many of those experts will be calling to dis-cuss your ticket when the topic is more content- or strategy-related and not a technical request.

• Once a ticket is submitted, if training materials are available, such as informational sheets or how-tovideos, staff will provide those documents when it’s noted who will be handling the ticket.

• In an effort to continue to improve the ticket system, once a ticket is resolved, each submitter cantake a five-question survey at the bottom of the ticket that will provide useful feedback.

This content is new to the Newsroom Handbook}


GATEHOUSE MEDIA NEWSROOM HANDBOOK | SUPPORT & COMMUNICATION

8

PERSONNEL

Brad Dennison | Vice President/News & Interactive [email protected] | 585-802-3688

• General local strategy questions

• Development requests

• Vendor requests and issues

• Ethical questions and issues

David Arkin | Executive Director/News & Interactive [email protected] | 630-936-6070

• General online content questions and support

• Overall online training coordination

• Content implementation questions and support

• Content questions, direction for new online features

• Archive transition questions and support

Chris Biondi | Coordinator of Online Content/News & Interactive [email protected] | 585-802-9538

• Analytics questions (technical and strategic)

• Blogging platform and development questions and training

• Social networking strategy

• Story comments and forums

Tom Sudore | Coordinator of Multimedia Development/News & Interactive [email protected] | 585-200-4058

• Video questions, support, training and equipment needs

• Zope content support and training

• Syndication questions and support

This content is new to the Newsroom Handbook}GATEHOUSE MEDIA NEWSROOM HANDBOOK | SUPPORT AND COMMUNICATION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

CULTURE CUBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Management development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

• Leadership styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11• SMART writing goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12• Effective feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Personnel development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14• Alternative story formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14• Breakout boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19• Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Product development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22• Newsroom incubator program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

NEWS CUBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Public service journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

• Story templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Community partner journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29• Profile templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Staff blogging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Community blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

WEB CUBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Constant local updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

• The three layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Multimedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61• Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61• Photo galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Reader involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63• Polls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63• Reader callouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65• General recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66• 2010 reader callout calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67• Reader advisory board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69• Social networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70• Other recommendations (linking, maps, live chats) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72• What content goes online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73• Story comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Video style guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76• Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76• Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79• Additional video resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81• Equipment recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Newsroom Handbook 2010The Content Cube3GateHouse Media

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THIS HANDBOOK documents GateHouse Media’s Web online and print strategy as explained throughthe Content Cube3.

The Content Cube3 focuses on a few significant areas: training, print and online development, andreader and community involvement. The different “cubes” connect with one another from a content and development standpoint.

CULTURE CUBEThe Culture Cube3 is a mix of our training and development programs that helps newsrooms grow and develop.

Management development | The GateHouse Newsroom Leadership Series provides an intense two-day training program for editors at all levels on the key areas of newsroom management, with a specificfocus on new media development.Personnel development | Our regional training series offers a variety of hands-on teaching in focused regions on topics such as new story formats, editing, reporting, photo toning and design.Product development | The Newsroom Incubator program helps newspapers restructure their organizations, content and, in the end, the presentation of their products.

NEWS CUBEThe News Cube3 program serves as a simple way to increase local news while saving time through newformats and more reader involvement in your print product.

Reader involvement | This portion focuses on how to get readers engaged with your site by involvingthem with staff and community blogs, polls and social networking.Community partnership journalism | This program focuses on utilizing community organizations tohelp supply static content throughout the newspaper.Public service journalism | Through alternative story formats, public service journalism can help cre-ate positive change in communities and keep readers in the loop concerning how their tax dollars arebeing spent.

WEB CUBEThe Web Cube3 helps increase unique online content throughout the day, while seeking avenues to en-gage readers in local sites.

Constant updating | This portion focuses on driving local updates throughout the day through con-tent newspapers are covering and content that’s coming in to their newsroom.Multimedia | This portion focuses on developing consistent photo galleries and video for local sites.Reader Involvement | This program helps newsrooms seek reader photos and stories dozens oftimes throughout the year, with a significant promotion resource offered.

The Content Cube | OverviewGateHouse Media 3

THE CONTENT CUBEComprehensive, cohesive training and implementation for print and digital publishing.

Culture Cube News Cube Web Cube

Management developmentNewsroom Leadership Series

Personnel developmentRegional training series

Product developmentNewsroom incubator program

Reader involvementUser-generated content

Community involvementIndentify partners

Public service journalismKeep readers informed

Constant updatingNews Now

MultimediaVideo and photo galleries

Reader involvementEngagement and callouts

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CULTURE CUBEThe Culture Cube is a mix of training and development that helps newsroom staff learn and grow.

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

The GateHouse Newsroom Leadership Series is an intensive training program for editors at all levels onthe key areas of newsroom management, with a specific focus on new-media development.

A variety of management topics are addressed during the training session, including managementstyles, goal-setting and effective feedback.

1. LEADERSHIP STYLES

Every editor has to find the management style that best fits him or her. During the training, editors areprovided a variety of styles to consider and the impacts of that style.

DANIEL GOLEMAN’S SIX LEADERSHIP STYLESFrom his “Primal Leadership” book

The approach

Underlyingemotional

intelligence component

When the style

works best

Long-term overall impact

on climate

VISIONARY/ AUTHORITATIVE

Moves people toward a vision or

shared dream.

Transparency, self-confidence,self-awareness,

empathy, changecatalyst.

When changes require a new vision

or when a clear direction is needed.

Most stronglypositive

COACHING

AFFILIATIVE

DEMOCRATIC

PACESETTING/DRIVING

COMMANDING

Develops peoplefor the future

through learningand growth.

Developing others,empathy and

rapport, self-awareness.

To help an employee improve

performance or develop long-term

strengths.

Highly positive

Promotes harmony and

builds emotionalbonds.

Empathy, building

relationships, communication.

To heal rifts in ateam or

to motivate peopleduring stressful circumstances.

Positive

Forges consensus

through participation.

Collaboration,team leadership,communication.

To build buy-in or consensus, or to get input from valuable

employees.

Positive

Sets high standards for performance

and drives the work hard.

Conscientiousness,drive to achieve,

initiative.

To get immediateresults from a

highly motivatedand competent

team.

Often highly negative, becausetoo frequently ispoorly executed

Demands immediate action,

compliance.

Drive to achieve, initiative,

emotionalself-control.

In a crisis, to kick-start a turnaround,

or with problememployees.

Highly negative, because

so often is misused

NOTABLESHere’s some information thateditors are provided duringthe training prepared bytrainer ElaineKramer.}

The Content Cube | CultureGateHouse Media

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SPECIFIC TIME-BASEDRELEVANTATTAINABLEMEASURABLE

2. WRITING SMART GOALS

Creating and writing goals for staff members for their overall expectations or a specific project is key tomaking sure the employee understands what’s expected and how to achieve the task. SMART goals(Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based) are a simple and effective way to commu-nicate clear expectations.

Here are details on the five areas:

Specific | Goals must be clear and well-defined, or the person won’t understand the expectations.

• Not specific: Improve your communication.

• Specific: Initiate a conversation with your editor first thing in the day about the day’s anticipated sto-ries and story forms.

Measurable | Goals must have milestones that show whether the goals have been achieved or partlyachieved.

• Not measurable: Produce content for the Web.

• Measurable: Submit content for the Web site first for every story. News briefs on routine storiesshould be posted within 30 minutes.

Attainable | Goals must be realistic or the person will feel discouraged, bored or set up for failure.

• Not attainable: Produce 10 or more multi-day investigative reports this year.

• Attainable: Produce two enterprise stories off your beat each week.

Relevant | An individual’s goals must align with your company’s or your newsroom’s goals forprogress to occur.

• Not relevant: As a supervisor, provide training for staff photographer to become proficient at wildlifephotography.

• Relevant: As a supervisor, provide training for staff photographer to become proficient at producingjournalistically effective slide-shows.

Time-based | Goals must have stages and end points so that they actually get done during the timeavailable or at the time the work is needed.

• Not time-based: Improve your headlines.

• Time-based: Improve headlines within three months by concentrating on and adding a new skill eachmonth.

THE CONTENT CUBE | CULTURE

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3. EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

Employees often say they want more feedback.

Here are some tips to make feedback effective in your newsroom:

• Make tear-sheets while you read the paper in the morning or afternoon. Write a note in marker to thewriter, designer, photographer, headline writer or editor responsible for the good thing. If you have a bignewsroom goal, be conscious of the goal while you read the paper so you can mention items that hitthe mark.

• Make every work-related conversation a feedback conversation by tying the topic to a newsroom goalor a personal goal for the individual, and making it future-oriented.

• Send each staff member a brief hand-written note during the week of their birthday or hiring anniver-sary, telling them something you appreciate about their work.

• Make a computer file for each direct report and copy/paste items into the file each time you seesomething you want to remember. Do it right then because you probably won’t get back to it. If youkeep paper files, print out the example, highlight it and stuff it in the file.• If you want to have a formal talk with each direct report twice a year, put the meetings on your calen-dar and the other person’s at the beginning of the year, and make sure you also enter a reminder theweek before the meeting to reconfirm.

• If you want to take one staff member to lunch every other week, commit to the day and time, andnever book over that slot.

• Pick one day a week to be a meeting-less day for yourself, your staff or your newsroom, so you havetime to talk to staffs or individuals about their work.

• Offer coffee every first Thursday from 3 to 3:30 p.m. for anyone who wants to meet to share ideas forhow the newsroom could do something better. Ask the group one specific question, and then listenmore than you talk.

•If you walk to the soda machines or to get coffee, watch for someone going the same way, so you canchat for three minutes. Ask a question about his/her work.

• Walk through the newsroom a different way each time you go anywhere so you can see people andsay hi to them.

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PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT

Through a variety of regional training programs, newsrooms are provided hands-on training on topicssuch as new story formats, breakout boxes, planning and design.

Regional training is offered in small groups (normally 10 newspapers or fewer) throughout the year andcoordinated with publishers and editors.

Here’s a look at some of the key strategy points of the 2010 regional training program:

1. ALTERNATIVE STORY FORMATS

New story formats are a good tool to use to inform readers about stories you may traditionally coverbut that offer newsrooms the opportunity to present the content in easier-to-digest formats.

What stories are ASFs best used with? Stories that you report on year after year, such as festivals orannual events. ASFs also are a good fit for process-oriented stories, such as the opening of a businessor a new facility.

When should ASFs not be used? If you are reporting an issue for the first time and it’s a significantstory, don’t use an ASF. Readers will be left with a lack of depth. An ASF is a good choice for an updateon a story that you have already reported to explore a specific topic in greater detail. For example, ifyou’ve published a story on the fact that your city council is considering discontinuing curbside recy-cling, a follow-up to that story could be a Q&A answering questions readers might have about the im-pact that eliminating the service would have and what they would have to do with their recycling. A Q&Ais an excellent example of an alternative story format.

How many alternative story formats should be in your newspaper? There should be a mix of ASFsand narrative reporting in your newspaper every day or week. Good decisions should be made concern-ing which format is most appropriate for individual stories, but narrative reporting is likely to be usedmore than ASFs. Find anchored places in your newspaper to offer ASFs, such as a Q&A on the bottomof your front page with a newsmaker on Mondays or a Volunteer of the Week on Tuesdays on your com-munity page.

NOTABLESSee the next pagefor more infor-mation on utilizing ASFs.}

Here are several recommended uses for ASFs:

• 5 THINGS

When to use it | This is intended to be a standalone package to informreaders about a single topic, issue or event. Examples include previewing afestival, renovations at a facility or a high school game or season, and a list ofthings to do for the weekend or a holiday.

How to use it | The way to gauge whether this package can be used is iffive uniquely informative elements can be written about the topic. The lengthof each item can differ slightly, but consistent lengths for each item are en-couraged. The package can be modified to accommodate odd ad stacks andvertical photos.

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• MEETING COVERAGEWhen to use it | This format should be used when covering a city councilmeeting where multiple issues are on the agenda that don’t require full sto-ries. Use this format for more process-oriented stories. How to use it | Simply answer these questions:

1. What's the issue? A concise sentence, perhaps two at the most, explaining the issue being addressed at the meeting.

2. What do we know? Depending on the issue, this section could have the most content, but brevity is important when using ASF templates.

3. What's next? This could be the date when the issue will come to a vote, when a project will begin or when the next action will be taken.


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• EVENT OPENINGWhen to use it | This format is ideal for covering the opening of a newbusiness or a renovation to a facility.How to use it | Because of the number of places to place text on this for-mat, the reporter and photographer need to know in advance what contentis expected to fill this package. The three main parts of this package include:

1. INTRO. The main paragraph narrative should be quick and con-cise and should explain the event in three to four sentences. This is basically your nut graph.

2. REACTION. Three sets of mugs and quotes from officials and resi-dents who attended the event.

3. PHOTOS: The highlights of the facility should be showcased in this area. A photo should accompany each highlight.


NEW COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY NOW OPEN

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• Q&A WITH A NEWSMAKERWhen to use it | This is a question-and-answer interview with a relevant official or community leader.How to use it | The format offers ample space for an introduction and fivequestions and responses. A dominant photo should capture the subject inhis or her environment.


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By the numbers

10Percentage that taxesare expected to go up

next year.

10Percentage that taxesare expected to go up

next year.

Follow-upWHAT WE KNEW FrancesChoy was accused of killingher parents when she was 17.THE LATEST A jury is delib-erating her fate.WHAT’S NEXT She couldface up to 30 years in prisonif convicted.

TimelineThe newspaper industry:59 B.C. Acta Diurna, the firstnewspaper, is published inRome.1556 First monthly newspa-per, Notizie Scritte, publishedin Venice.1605 First printed newspa-per published weekly inAntwerp called Relation.

What they’re saying“Quote text from someonegoes here.” — Attributiongoes here

“Quote text from someonegoes here.” — Attributiongoes here

“Quote text from someonegoes here.” — Attributiongoes here

WHEN TO USE THISControversial storieswhere there are dif-ferent views on anissue or for a festivalstory that has lots ofcommunity voices.

}

For and againstFOR A paragraph explainingthe stance of someone who isfor the issue.AGAINST A paragraph ex-plaining the stance of some-one who is against the issue.

2A. BREAKOUT BOXES

They are an important tool that pairs with a story and helps readers get basic information that's related to the story.

Here are guidelines for breakout boxes:

• All bylined stories should carry some form of breakout box

• Should be short, 3 inches or less (unless a timeline)

• Need to have entry points and not be a full paragraph in a box

• Content can be duplicated from a story in a breakout box if that content is a logical guide in a box forthe reader

• Should be planned as part of story assignments

If you goWHAT Name of event getstyped in here.WHEN Time and date ofevent go here.DETAILS A few quick detailsabout the event go here, thiscan be anything, cost, etc.MORE INFOXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What they meanABSOLUTE HUMIDITY Atype of humidity that consid-ers the mass of water vaporpresent per unit volume ofspace. ABSOLUTE INSTABILITYWhen the lapse rate of a col-umn of air is greater than thedry adiabatic lapse rate. Theterm absolute is used be-cause this applies. ABSOLUTE TEMPERATURESCALE A temperature scalewith a freezing point of+273°K (Kelvin) and a boilingpoint of +373°K.

Meeting glanceHere are the top three thingsthat came out of last night’scouncil meeting:1 Taxes will go up by 3 per-cent starting next year.2 A decision was made totable purchasing a new truckfor the city.3 A decision was made totable purchasing a new truckfor the city.

WHEN TO USE THISFor stories wherepoliticians from twoparties have differentviewpoints on anissue or two citycouncil members disagree on a topic.

}WHEN TO USE THIS Glossaryterms are good to use when youare handling complex issuessuch as weather stories, healthtopics or budget issues.

}

WHEN TO USE THISThis is great for stories that you arefollowing, such asgovernment develop-ments, crime newsand more.

}

WHEN TO USE THIS Anythingthat has a historical hook to it orhas had a series of events asso-ciated with it. Court cases, development projects.

}

WHEN TO USE THIS Perfectfor anything you are advancing,city council meeting, event intown, game.

}

WHEN TO USE THIS Great touse for all meeting stories, cap-ping the highlights from themeeting for the busy reader.

}


WHEN TO USE THISGreat to pull numbersof employment stories, city councilbudget stories, sportsstories and more.

}

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2B. ONLINE PROMOTIONS

Breakout boxes can be used to tease different online features. The teasers below are available in green, blue, or black and white. Find the print logos for onlinecontent here: www.gatehousenewsservice.com/ghns_pages/x949369614/Online-logos-for-print-products

JOIN THE CHATUse to invite readersto talk about a con-troversial story that’sappearing in yournewspaper.

JOIN THE CHATSHARE YOURCOMMENTS

www.xxxxXXXXXXXXXXxxxx.com





} PHOTOS ONLINECHECK OUT THE GALLERY AT


PHOTOS ONLINECHECK OUT THE GALLERY AT


PHOTOS ONLINECHECK OUT THE GALLERY AT


PHOTO GALLERYInvite readers tosee more photosfrom a photo pageor coverage from anevent.

{

VIDEO ONLINECHECK OUT THE LATEST VIDEO AT






VIDEO ONLINEIf your newspaperhas a video that’s related to a story orfrom another source,use this promotion todirect readers to yoursite to view it.

} MORE ONLINEFIND RELATEDSTORIES


MORE ONLINEFIND RELATEDSTORIES


MORE ONLINEFIND RELATEDSTORIES


MORE ONLINETease Web sites,documents or othercontent that’s related to a story.{

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3. PLANNING

Managing content such as alternative story formats and unique content on the Web takes planning.

Should we hold a weekly planning meeting? Yes. The News & Interactive Division recommendsevery newspaper conduct a weekly meeting when centerpieces for the next week are planned. Thiskind of meeting should be conducted for every section of a newspaper.

What are centerpieces? Centerpieces are defined as the main featured photo and story in the middleof your front page or section front. The centerpiece is not necessarily the top news story in your paperon most days.

How far in advance should we plan our centerpieces? Newspapers should know what their center-piece is at least seven days in advance. To accomplish this goal, your centerpiece should be issue-ori-ented or a billboard to other content in your newspaper. For example, instead of making yourcenterpiece day-old news, use it to examine issues that your local government is debating or consider-ing, topics that impact the quality of life of your readers. This kind of content is easy to find. Follow-upsfrom council meetings turn into great centerpieces when you explain to readers the impact of a story ortalk to residents about what the decision means for them. Sports content can often find a place in yourcenterpiece, for a big Friday night high school football game, playoff contest or the kickoff of LittleLeague baseball. It’s OK to put events in your centerpiece, but they should offer unique content teasersto the Web and be more than a standalone photo. They should be packages and not just regurgitatedold news or a single photo of an event with no Web elements. Remember, centerpieces are a chance todisplay a strong visual element as main art. The main art for a horizontal centerpiece should be fourcolumns, and a vertical centerpiece should be three columns.

Does this mean that breaking news can’t be our centerpiece? No. If big news breaks, make it yourcenterpiece – especially if you have a strong main photo or several elements you can tease to insideyour paper and on the Web – and ship your planned centerpiece inside the paper or move it to anotherday. Planning centerpieces provides your newspaper with a safety net.

Are there mandatory elements every centerpiece should have? Yes. Centerpieces need a headline,subhead, story, strong photo or numerous photos, a breakout box and some kind of online feature.

How should we plan the centerpieces? Based on the number of people in your newsroom, have eachstaff member handle a specific number of centerpieces each week. During a planning meeting, have eachstaff member bring a certain number of ideas to the table and use the below planner as a tool to help planthe centerpieces. Keep this document in your system and update it each week as stories change.

• YOUR NEWSPAPER CENTERPIECE PLANNERFor week of Monday, July 6, to Sunday, July 12

FOR XXXDAY, XXXXX, X

Reporter:

Headline:

Nut graph:

Art [photos, illustration, map]:

Breakout boxes [who wins-who loses, what's at stake, what happens next, key players, key issues, formore information, timeline, bio box, excerpt, glossary, Q&A, reader quiz, quote-a-rama, where to go]:

Web element [poll, photo gallery, video, photo or story callout]:

Deadline for story:

Deadline for art:

Notes:

NOTABLESRepeat for eachday of the week.}


PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

1. NEWSROOM INCUBATOR PROGRAM

The program helps newspapers restructure their organizations, content and the presentation of theirproducts with a redesign.

Who can receive the program? Any GateHouse Media publication. Dailies, weeklies, special sections,magazines, TMCs and shoppers are all eligible.

How does the program work? A publisher or editor at the publication contacts the News & InteractiveDivision ([email protected]). We’ll learn about your project and your newspaperthrough conference calls and a possible site visit and discuss a timeline for your project. We’ll learnabout your community, demographics, goals, staff, news-gathering methods and structure. Conversa-tion on those topics will help drive the focus of your redesign.

What’s the process of the redesign? After initial conversations on the above items, we’ll work withyour staff to develop a content plan. The content plan establishes what content will appear on specifictemplates for your newspaper.

How does a newspaper’s content change through this process? Newsrooms receive training inareas such as planning, new story formats and breakout boxes as part of the program, all of which havea big part in the development of the content plan. For example, many newspapers select specific alter-native story formats featured in their content plan that will appear on their templates after receivingthe training.

Does the nameplate change? As part of the process, newspapers decide if they want to make adjust-ments to their nameplate. If they choose to change, each paper is provided several dozen typographychoices to pick from. The newspaper selects examples of what they like, and their nameplate is cus-tomized.

Do we get prototypes? Yes. For every template that you currently have, you will receive a prototype,based on the content plan that’s established.

What kind of technical support do we receive? The News & Interactive Division handles all heavylifting through the process, including building all templates and delivering and helping install fonts.

Are there promotions? Yes. Each newspaper will receive promotions to run in advance letting readersknow about the change.

Is there design training? Each newspaper receives a design training guide, along with a design train-ing session, through a Webinar. There is design training also available after the launch.

How much notice do we have to give? The process takes about three months to execute, so let theNews & Interactive Division know as soon as possible so that we can work your newspaper into ourschedule.

How many newspapers have gone through the incubator program? During the past 2 ½ years,more than 70 GateHouse Media newspapers — of all sizes — have participated.

22


WEEKEND© 2009 LAKE SUNVol.130, No. 025 • Saturday, January 31, 2009

Serving the Lake of the Ozarks Region since 1879 $1.00$1.00

FREE recorded

message 24 hours.

Dial 1-800-644-3620

ID# 4000 or at

GuaranteedLakeSale.info

If Eligible. Costs and conditions apply. Call for details.

W.A.C. - Not intended to solicit properties currently listed for sale.

Not intended to solicit buyers currently under buyers agency.

“Your Home SOLD

in 120 Days.

GUARANTEED.”

at a price acceptable to you

... or I’ll Buy it M

yself!

RaulWaltersdies

NOTED LAKE AREA,MISSOURI RETAILDEVELOPER

Mid-County Fire Protection District to voters:

By Charis [email protected]

CAMDEN COUNTY - The Mid-County Fire Protection District chief saysasking voters for a levy increase during

the “worst economic downturn in 70years” was not an easy decision. But hedid not have an option.

In order to maintain the level of serviceoffered by the lake area’s largest fire pro-tection district, Chief Scott Frandsen saysthey need to increase revenue.

Voters will be asked to pass a 30-cent

By Joyce L. [email protected]

OSAGE BEACH - Well known de-veloper Raul Walters apparentlypassed away earlier this week. Wal-ters had a number of development in-terests in the lake area including theformer Wal-Mart sites in OsageBeach and Camdenton.

Just two weeks ago, the OsageBeach Board of Aldermen approveda $5 million tax increment financingdistrict for the High Pointe Center,one of Walter’s properties.

Walters was the original developerof High Pointe that had, in recent

See Tax plan, page 2�

See Walters page 5�

By Deanna [email protected]

COKE – “MEAN JOE GREENE” (1980)Technically this commercial debuted be-

fore just before the start of the SuperBowl, but we had to add it to the list any-ways because of its iconic status. After atough game, Greene comes limping intothe stadium tunnel. He meets a kid. Thekid offers Greene his Coke. Greene gulpsit down before tossing the kid his jersey.The commercial has been remade severaldifferent times with different sports, nonecan compare to the original

Have a super timeOur favorite Super Bowlcommercials

5

‘There’s no option’

Two arrests,three poundsof marijuanaLinn Creek men

6DAYS UNTIL THE

LAUNCH OF THE

LAKE SUN REDESIGN

First in a series

5 THINGS: Weekends, KurtWarner, Jay Nixon,groundhogs, and Optimists

MISSOURI WATER QUALITY Second of two parts

Best inU.S.

WHY HHEWON’T CCUTHIS GGRASSHIS QQUIRKY RREASON MAY SSURPRISE YYOU‹‹ HOME & GARDEN, A9

LOSS ENDSBULLDOGS’SEASON‹‹ SPORTS, A9

COUNTYPASSESPARK PPLANSPORTS, A9

THINGSTO DO THISWEEKEND

JANUARY 30-31

FRIDAY & SATURDAY

2009Serving the Lake of the Ozarks Region since 1879

Volume 112, Issue 27

CAMDENTON

Monkey around primate houseThe Camdenton Zoo is hosting “Meet the Monkeys,”a behind-the-scenes program that lets visitors seefirst-hand what goes on behind walls of one of theU.P.’s greatest attractions. The program is free butspace is limited. Register at (555) 555-1234.

BAGNELL

See ‘Winterfest’ ice sculptures The Camdenton Zoo is hosting “Meet the Monkeys,”a behind-the-scenes program that lets visitors seefirst-hand what goes on behind walls of one of theU.P.’s greatest attractions. The program is free butspace is limited. Register at (555) 555-1234.

NEONGWAH

‘Race for a Cure’ on SundayThe Camdenton Zoo is hosting “Meet the Monkeys,”a behind-the-scenes program that lets visitors seefirst-hand what goes on behind walls of one of theU.P.’s greatest attractions. The program is free butspace is limited. Register at (555) 555-1234.

WEEKEND PLANNER

MILLER COUNTY

9TH PUB CRAWL FORGET THE WINTERBLUES AND ENJOYN’AWLINS’ MARDI GRASFESTIVITIES HERE‹‹ ENTERTAINMENT, 1B

CHEER-LEADERSMAKE THEIRCASE‹‹ SPORTS, 16A

E-BOARDTACKLESTCLA HIKEOPINION, 4A

THINGSTO DO THISWEEKEND

FEBRUARY 6-7FRIDAY & SATURDAY

2009Serving the Lake of the Ozarks Region since 1879

Volume 130, Issue 30

LAKE OZARK

Showcase auditions SundayAuditions for the Showcase of Performing Arts willbe held in the Lake Arts Council office at 748 “D”Road in Lake Ozark, on Feb. 7 from 10 a.m.- untilnoon. Participants must be 18 years old and notcurrently in high school.

FOUR SEASONS

13th annual Winterfest funLake Ozark Daybreak Rotary Club’s 13th AnnualWinterfest Event is Saturday night! The big eventincludes dinner, live music by Jake Simpson, silentand live auction, and many door prizes. Doors openat 5:30 p.m. at Lodge of Four Seasons Exhibit Hall.The theme this year is Saturday Night Fever sowear your 70’s dancing shoes and apparel!

LAKE OF THE OZARKS STATE PARK

Bonk Hard ChillThe adventure in the heart of winter challengesparticipants for up to 12 hours of continuousmountain biking, canoe paddling and runningthrough a course using only a map and compassas a guide.

$1

TIP LEADS COPSTO DEAD BABYBODY FOUND DURING SEARCH

NOTABLESFront pages fromThe Lake SunLeader (Lake Sun,Mo.) before andafter they enteredthe newsroom incubator program.}

23

The Content Cube | NewsGateHouse Media

NEWS CUBE

THE NEWS CUBE PROGRAM

To be implemented at all GateHouse Media newspapers in 2010, News Cube3 builds more local contentfor newspapers’ print products and Web sites through an aggressive implementation of consistent pub-lic service journalism formats, more local profiles, staff and community blogging, and more reader in-volvement.

Here are the five major goals of the 2010 News Cube program:

Public service journalism | Drive improvements in our communities through a weekly alternativestory format.

Community partner journalism | Implement alternative story formats in which community leadersand residents fill out print and online forms for anchored newsmaker and event advance features on ahost of themes.

Staff bloggers | Produce local blogs on a host of topics that staff are experts on.

Community bloggers | Build a community of local bloggers on sites, recruiting those who may already have blogs and setting up others with strong local ties and expertise.

User-generated content | Ask readers to submit their news in a new weekly schedule by usingreader-involvement callouts.

1. PUBLIC SERVICE JOURNALISM

What is public service journalism? Public service journalism is more than reporting what has hap-pened or will happen — it also highlights specific issues and provides readers with information andtools to spur measurable community involvement and action. While much of the local government and issues reporting that newspapers produce serves the public at different levels each day, News Cubeaims to take it a step further and turn community concerns into action.

What are the News Cube goals with public service journalism? Consistent public service reportingis at the center of the 2010 News Cube goals, and the News & Interactive Division has prepared tem-plates to use to offer formatted public service stories to readers. Providing readers avenues to digest, ina quick format, news that showcases how government is spending their dollars and how they can havetheir questions concerning quality of life issues answered are goals of the public service portion of theNews Cube program.

What are the formats? Five alternative story formats will be available.

1. What’s Your Problem? Reporting on a problem in your community that can and should be fixed bylocal government. Readers are asked to send in their problems to the paper.2. What’s Going on Here? When readers see things occurring around town, such as a new development on adowntown street, they can find out what’s occurring by sending the question to the newspaper’s “What isit?” feature. 3. Budget Breakdown: Helps readers understand how governments are spending local tax dollars, witha focus on specific budget lines.4. Your Question Answered: A Q&A column from a staff member explaining reader concerns on com-munity issues or how the newspaper handles issues.5. Two Views: An opinion page feature where two people debate an issue.

How often should these features run? Newspapers should run one of the five features once a weekand run the others as content calls for it. The features are best used on the front page or an inside newsor opinion page.

Is there more with public service journalism we can do? These templates offer a way to consis-tently offer public service journalism content, and this approach in some cases could even lead tolarger public service print and Web investigative projects or could help build on your own public servicejournalism initiatives.

3

3

• WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM TEMPLATE

24

What is it? What's Your Problem is a feature that documents ongoing structural problems in a com-munity that haven’t been fixed, such as pot holes, broken stop signs and broken stoplights. Problemsthat are documented should be things that can be fixed in a timely fashion and not issues that are tiedto major finances, such as the demolition of eyesore buildings.

Why should we do this feature? Newsrooms often get calls from readers complaining about issuesthat are impacting safety and quality of life. The What’s Your Problem feature allows newsrooms a con-sistent place to anchor these stories.

How do we get the feature going? Brainstorm with your staff on issues that readers have called inwith or topics that residents have raised during meetings as needing to be fixed. Consider creating pro-motional ads as well, asking readers to send in problems they want to see fixed.

The content:

• Highlighting the issue or problem.

• Status of the issue or problem.

• Who is responsible for the problem at the local government level.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature in yourpaper weekly atthe bottom of thefront page. }THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

25

• WHAT’S GOING ON HERE TEMPLATE

What is it? Reporters aren’t the only curious residents in town. Readers are, too. The What’s Going onHere feature helps explain in an alternative story format why there's a “For Sale” sign in front of a his-toric building, why there's a detour around an old bridge or why there's a pile of dirt next to the ballfield.

How is it used? Come up with a list of three or four possible What’s Going on Here topics and start re-porting. The template has an area for readers to contact the paper if they want their questions an-swered. In addition, reporters and editors should document when readers ask them questions in theirreporting and through phone calls that could fit into the future.

The content:

• The question.

• The answer.

• What it means to you.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature in yourpaper weekly onthe front page or a local news page.}THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

26

• BUDGET BREAKDOWN TEMPLATE

What is it? Budget Breakdown zeroes in on one particular number within a multi-million-dollar town orcity budget and explains exactly what the money is being spent on, according to the city leader incharge of the budget. The feature puts the number into the context of the overall budget and the indi-vidual department budget.

Why should we do this feature? Often city budgets can be difficult for the average reader to under-stand. Breaking down the budget into individual budget lines or by department will help readers betterunderstand how their tax dollars are being spent.

How is it used? Look through the city budget to find individual line items of interest. For example, anewspaper might find a miscellaneous supplies line that is greater than other individual lines in the sec-tion of a department budget. This feature would allow the newspaper to explain that budget line. Or thisfeature could be used to explain the amount of money a department is budgeted to use in a given yearand how that money is spent.

The content:

• The number of the line item or budget.

• Funding figure last year.

• Total city budget.

• Percent of total city budget.

• Total department budget.

• Percent of department budget.

• Explanation about the line item or the department’s budget.

• More information about the city budget can be found at the following links.

NOTABLESIt is recommendedthat you run thisfeature during thebudget season.}THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

27

• YOUR QUESTION ANSWERED TEMPLATE

What is it? Your Question Answered is a public service journalism column presented in Q&A format byan editor or a reporter. The column could address a single reader concern relevant to a wider reader-ship or a series of short questions and answers.

What kind of content would go in the column? A reader may want to know what city hall is doing toconserve energy or what the police department pays per gallon for gasoline. Or they may be curioushow their tax bill stacks up against someone in a similar home in the next town.

Why should we do this feature? Readers aren’t just looking for a digest of news, sports and features.They want to be educated in fun and informative formats on topics that have puzzled them. The YourQuestions Answered format accomplishes those goals.

How is it used? Come up with a list of three or four possible topics based on questions residents haveasked at meetings or recent topics that are being discussed in the commenting area of your Web site.Use those topics to get the feature going. There’s a callout in the template of the feature inviting read-ers to submit their questions to the writer of the column.

The content:

• A breakout box addressing the following:— The question— The answer— What it means to you

• A Q&A answering the question in depth.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature weekly onthe opinion pageor on a news page.}THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

28

• TWO VIEWS TEMPLATE

What is it? Two Views is an opinion page feature that highlights an issue in the news and presents inbrief format the issue and arguments or views from two people supporting either side of the issue.

Why should we do this feature? Allowing officials to explain their stance in their own words can offermore clarification for readers. And when that explanation is paired next to a different view, readers areoffered the opportunity to make an educated decision on that topic.

How is it used? Build a list of issues and solicit people in the community engaged in the issue to writea brief argument for or against. Provide those writing a word count — likely fewer than 100 words —and a deadline. Have a mug shot of each writer.

The content:

• The issue.

• Argument for and argument against.

• Short bio on the two arguing the issue.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly as a featureon the opinionpage. This is agood format to use during elections as well,showcasing candidates’ stances on issues.

}THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

2. COMMUNITY PARTNER JOURNALISM

What is Community Partner Journalism? The goal of News Cube 2010 is to generate more local con-tent for our newspapers and Web sites. A simple avenue to accomplish that goal is by establishing moreways for our readers to submit news about themselves, their families and their organizations. Commu-nity Partner Journalism encourages newspapers to reach out to organizations that supply content andcreate more consistent, formatted profile offerings that those organizations can submit to get theirnews in the paper and online.

How does the CPJ program work? The program is aimed at partnering with groups such as hospitalsand churches and chambers of commerce (groups that are always trying to get into the newspaper),providing those groups a form that they can fill out on a weekly basis that they send back to your newsroom and that is anchored in a formatted position in your paper and on your site.

What’s the best way to get groups on board with this kind of project? It’s important for yournewsroom to decide which of the CPJ possibilities (listed below) you want to offer in your newspaper.Once decided, customize the letter (featured in this section) and send it to the organization that youwant to partner with, along with the prototype you will receive from the News & Interactive Division thatshowcases what the feature will look like. It’s important to agree to a consistent day and time that theform will be due and when and where it will run in your newspaper.

What are the newsroom expectations of CPJs? Daily newspapers will be expected to run a daily CPJ feature, and weekly publications — at a minimum — should run one a week.

What could a typical daily or weekly lineup look like? MONDAY Newsmaker of the week profile on page A1, keyed to a local news event and generated byquestions e-mailed to the newsmaker. TUESDAY Volunteer of the week on page A3. WEDNESDAY Health care profile of the week on page A3. THURSDAY Business or businessperson profile of the week on page A3 or the business page. FRIDAY Church or religious leader profile of the week on page A3 or the religion page. Weeklies could settle on one or two of these features or rotate several throughout the month.

What are the CPJ options? Here is a list of the dozen templates available:

• Teacher or professor profile

• Public safety official profile

• Student profile

• Athlete profile

• Coach profile

• Event advance

• Event report

• Church profile

• Religious leader profile

• Health care worker profile

• Businessperson profile

• Meet your neighbor profile

29

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run theCPJs on the bot-tom of the frontpage or localfront, on page 2Aor on a feature,sports or commu-nity page.

}

THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

30

What is it? A template to profile teachers, college professors and other educators.

Why should we do this? Parents are interested to learn about their child’s current teachers and thosewho could educate them in the future.

How do we use it? Send a letter to principals or public relations directors seeking their involvement inthe feature. In the letter, ask to have the form filled out and mailed or e-mailed back to the newspaperby a certain date with a photo. Include a PDF of the prototype included on this page so the official un-derstands what the feature looks like.

The content:

• Biographical information: Name, age, hometown, education, background, family, interests andhobbies.

Q&A: Here are five questions to ask and run the best three responses.

• How they ended up being an educator and why.

• A teacher or professor who inspired them and how.

• Someone in history or current events who inspires them and why.

• The greatest challenges in education today.

• Advice for someone who wants to go into education.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly on the education or community page.}• TEACHER OR PROFESSOR PROFILE


Date:

Dear Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

The goal of XXXXXXXXXXXX and www.ournewspaper.com is to provide our readers with a true reflec-tion of life in our community, and we need your help.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX School to take part.

Every week, we would like to feature a local teacher in our new “Teacher of the Week” feature. We’ll fea-ture teachers who play a part in making your school a great success.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Teacher of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You can drop offthis form at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].

I will follow up with a phone call to talk about how we can work together to be sure you and your organi-zation are included in our community partner program.

Thank you,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Teacher of the week form:

Name:Position, subject you teach:School:Age:Experience:Hometown:Education:Family:Interests and hobbies:

In several sentences explain how and why you decided to become an educator.

Who is a teacher or professor who inspired you and how?

Who is someone in current events who you admire and why?

What are the greatest challenges in education today?

What advice can you offer for someone who wants to go into education?

What teaching moment is most memorable?

31

Teacher or professor profile letter:


32

What is it? A template to profile police officers, firefighters and other public safety officials.

Why should we do this? This format allows readers to learn more about those who serve and protectthe community.

How do we use it? Send a letter to police and fire department chiefs or any other public safety depart-ment in your community. In the letter, ask the organization to be part of your public safety weekly feature.In the letter ask the chief to fill out the form. Request that the chief send a photo of the employee and re-turn the form as soon as possible. Include a PDF of the prototype included on this page so the chief under-stands what the feature looks like.

The content:

• Biographical information including: Name, age, hometown, education, background, family, interestsand hobbies.


• In several sentences explain how the person being profiled ended up in public safety and why.

• Someone who inspired them and why.

• Greatest challenges in their field.

• Advice for someone who wants to become an officer or firefighter.

• Something about the line of work that most people don't know.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly and place iton the front page,a community pageor in lifestyle. }• PUBLIC SAFETY PROFILE


33

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX Police Department to take part in thenew feature.

Every week, we would like to feature a local fireman or police officer as our “Public Safety Person of theWeek.” We’ll feature police officers, front office workers and anyone in your department who plays apart in making public safety a success.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Public Safety Person of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. Youcan drop it off at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].


Thank you,


Public safety person of the week form:

Name:Age:Position:Hometown:Education and experience:Family:

In several sentences explain why you decided to get involved with public safety.

Who inspired you and how?

What are the greatest challenges in your field?

What advice can you offer for someone who wants to go into public safety?

What’s something about your line of work that most people don’t know?

What is a memorable moment in your career and why?

Public safety person of the week profile letter:


34

What is it? A template to profile high school and college students.

Why should we do this feature? Many schools provide newspapers information on students of theweek or month information, but often the information is buried on a community or education page andlooks like any other submitted piece of content. Finding an anchored place for this kind of content tolive and having it appear on a regular and consistent basis will create more participation for this kind ofcontent.

How do we use it and manage it? Based on the number of schools you have in your area, create a ro-tation for this feature. Send a letter to each principal and explain the feature and seek their participa-tion. Provide a date when you would like to have the form and photo submitted each week or month.

The content:

• Biographical information: Student's name, age, hometown, grade, GPA, background, family, interestsand hobbies.


• Favorite courses of study and why.

• A teacher or professor who inspires the student and how.

• History or current events that inspires them and why.

• Greatest challenges balancing academics, home life, social life and other activities.

• Plans beyond school.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly. Place it ona community oreducation page. }• STUDENT PROFILE


35

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like your school to take part in the new feature.

Every week, we would like to feature local schoolchildren in our new “Student of the Week” feature. We’llfeature local students who are succeeding in the classroom, who have received honors or have an inter-esting story.

Below is a form we would you like to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Student of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You can drop thisform off at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].


Thank you,


Student of the week profile form:

Name:Age:Class:GPA:School:Grade:Family:Hometown:Extracurricular: Interests:

What’s your favorite course of study and why?

Who is a teacher or professor who inspires you and why?

Is there a current event that inspires you and why?

What’s the greatest challenge of balancing academics, home life, social life and other activities?

What are your plans after graduation and why?

Student of the week profile letter:


36

What is it? A template to be used to profile high school and college athletes.

Why should we do this feature? Sports content is extremely popular in all GateHouse Media commu-nities. Finding avenues to include more local faces in the paper in a consistent format will help increaselocal news and capture the excited base of high school sports fans.

How do we use it and manage it? Work with athletic directors, principals and public information di-rectors to select candidates and distribute and collect the Q&A forms and photos of the athletes. Senda letter to each athletic director, principal or public information director, to explain the feature and yourexpectation. Set up a date when the forms are due. If you have numerous high schools in your coveragearea, consider creating a rotation of high schools, providing each school with a date when their Q&A isdue each month.

Are we picking an athlete of the week? Since some newspapers may have concerns about singlingout specific athletes each week, you could call the feature Sports Spotlight.

The content: Bio information, including: Name, age, team, hometown, education, background, family,interests and hobbies and a variety of favorites.


• In three sentences, what do you enjoy most about your sport and athletics?

• What two memories from your time in sports stick with you most?

• Tell us about someone who inspires you in sports and why.

• What are the greatest challenges balancing academics and sports?

• What are your plans beyond school?

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly on sportsfront pages or in-side pages. }• ATHLETE PROFILE


37

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX School to take part.

Every week, we would like to feature a local athlete in our new “Athlete of the Week” feature. This is anopportunity for readers to meet local athletes and provide recognition for those teenagers who are suc-ceeding.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out every week and send to us, along with a photo of your se-lected athlete. The “Athlete of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. Pleasesubmit the form and photo to us every XXXXday by XX p.m. You can drop the forms off at our newspa-per or e-mail them to [email protected].


Thank you,


Athlete of the week profile form:

Name:Age:Team, name of school:Position:My favoritesPro athlete:Pro team:Class:Movie:TV show:Actor:Song:Band/musician:

In three sentences, explain what you enjoy most about your sport and athletics.

What is one of your more memorable moments as an athlete?

Tell us about someone who inspires you in sports and why:

What are the greatest challenges balancing academics and sports?

What are your plans after graduating from school?

Athlete of the week profile letter:


38

What is it? A template to be used to profile high school, college and youth league coaches.

Why should we do this feature? Coaches — at all levels — are major personalities and figures in com-munities. Learning about their background and their coaching style is of interest to a wide range ofreaders.

How do we use it and manage it? Send a letter to athletic directors that would request they workwith their coaches to have the forms filled out and returned with a photo. Send the request two weeksbefore the start of the season and request they are all sent back within a reasonable timeframe.

The content:

• Biographical information including: Coach's name, age, team, occupation, hometown, education,background, family, interests and hobbies.

Q&A: Here are four questions to ask and run the best three responses.

• Three sentences explaining his or her coaching philosophy.

• Two memories that stick out the most from their coaching career.

• Three pieces of advice for staying fit.

• The three greatest challenges in coaching.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisweekly on thesports front indailies and weeklies. }• COACH PROFILE


39

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX School to take part in the new fea-ture.

Every week, we would like to feature a local coach as our new “Coach of the Week.” This is an opportu-nity for readers to learn about the coaches who are teaching the community’s children how to performon the playing field.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out for every coach and send back to us, along with a photo. The“Coach of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You can drop off the forms atour newspaper or e-mail them to [email protected].


Thank you,


Coach profile letter form:

Name:Age:Team, position, school:Subject you teach:Education:Family:

How would you explain your coaching philosophy?

What are two memories from your career that stick with you the most?

What are three pieces of advice you have for staying fit?

What are the three greatest challenges in coaching?

Coach profile letter:


40

What is it? A template to be used to advance community events.

How do we use it? There are two approaches. 1. Send organizations an event advance form that pro-files an upcoming event. Send the form at least two weeks before the event. 2. Have the form availablefor organizers of events who call asking for coverage.

Why should we do this feature? Often, advances for upcoming festivals don’t change much fromyear to year, but the content is something readers expect. This feature allows a newspaper to get thestory into the paper without having to utilize newsroom resources.

Where should it be featured? At the bottom of the front page or on an entertainment page.

The content:

• If you go information including: Name of event, time, location, cost for event and details.

• Three highlights of the event.

• Why you should attend, with a quote or two from the organizer.

• A file photo from last year’s event, either from the newspaper’s files or the event organizer.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisas a regularweekly featureleading into theweekend. }• EVENT ADVANCE


41

Date:


Next weekend is the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, and we need your help to make sure that readers knowabout the event in the XXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXX.com.

We’re starting a new feature, which will allow organizers to provide basic information and file photos forupcoming events to be featured in your hometown newspaper.

At least a week before an event, like this weekend’s XXXXXXXXXXX, we’ll notify you and ask that you fillout the form below. We would like the form sent back to us at least four days before the event.

This is a great opportunity to get events you’re in charge of featured prominently.

I will follow up with a phone call to answer any questions that you might have about this opportunity.

Thank you,


Event advance form:

Name of event:Time of event:Location:Cost and how to get tickets:How to find out more information:What are three highlights of the event? Why you think someone should attend the event?Your name and hometown

Event advance letter:


42

What is it? A template to allow organizers to report on their community events.

Why should we do this? There are many events happening in your community, and it’s difficult to beat all of them, but reporting on them is a big part of your role as the paper of record in your community.This format allows you to get this information in the paper through using community partners in an or-ganized format.

How do we use it? If your newsroom isn’t able to cover a community event, send a form to the organ-izer of the event and ask them to fill it out and send it back to the newspaper with photos on a certainday. Provide the organizer of the event at least a week’s advance notice. Timeliness of the event is im-portant to keep in mind, so make sure the event organizer understands what day the form needs to besubmitted.

The content:

• Name and date of event.

• Three highlights of the event with description provided by organizer.

• A list of winners if a contest or competition was held.

• Three quotes from the organizer or attendees on how the event went.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisas a regular feature as needed.}• EVENT REPORT


43

Date:


There’s a lot that happens in our community, and we want to make sure that it’s all represented in thepages of our newspaper and on our Web site.

And we need your help.

For events that our newspaper isn’t able to cover, we would love your assistance. We’re starting a newfeature called “Event Report,” which is an easy format to tell readers about events that occurred in ourcommunity.

Next weekend is the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, and we would like you to fill out this form when the event isover and send it back to us, along with a photo. Please e-mail the form to me on XXXday by XX p.m. [email protected].

I will follow up with a phone call to answer any questions that you might have about this opportunity.

Thank you,


Event coverage form:

Name of the event:Date of the event:Provide three highlights of the event:Provide a list of winners if a contest or a competition is going to be held:Tell us why you think the event was a success:

Event report letter:


44

What is it? A template to be used to profile churches.

Why should we do this feature? Faith is a big part of many communities, and readers will be inter-ested to see their church featured and read about other churches in their community.

How do we use it? Send a letter to local churches asking them to be part of your new “church of theweek” feature. In the letter, ask the church leader to fill out the form (see form example on next page).Request that the church send a photo of the outside of the building and return the form as soon as pos-sible. Include a PDF of the prototype included on this page so the church understands what the featurelooks like.

The content:

• A breakout box should include the following information:Church nameDenominationAddressNumber of membersDays and times of services

• Information on the following:Church historyChurch activitiesHow to get involvedVolunteer opportunities and how to get involvedFundraisers

NOTABLESWe recommendthat if you cur-rently run a reli-gion page withservice listings,run it on that pageor on a half pagenext to it.

}• CHURCH PROFILE


45

Date:


The goal of XXXXXXXXXXXX and www.ournewspaper.com is to provide our readers a true reflection oflife in our community, and we need your help.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people and organizations in our community.

As part of this effort, we would like to feature a local church in our new “Church of the Week” feature,and we would like the XXXXXXXXXXX Church to take part. The feature is an opportunity to showcaselocal churches, learn about their history and their programs.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us, along with a photo. The “Church of theWeek” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You can drop this form off at our newspaperor e-mail it to [email protected].

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,


Church of the week profile form:

Name of church:Year built and brief church history:Denomination:Number of members:Pastor’s name:Volunteer opportunities and how to get involved:Fundraisers:Days and times of services:Bible study:Address:Info (phone number and Web address):

Church of the week profile letter:


46

What is it? A template to be used to profile religious leaders.

Why should we do this? In many communities, church leaders are significant public figures, but theyaren’t featured prominently enough in local newspapers. This feature would raise their profile and alsoallow readers to learn more about these leaders.

How do we use it? Send a letter to local churches asking them to be part of your new “church leadersof the week” feature. In the letter, ask the church leader to fill out the form. Request that the churchleader send a photo of himself or herself to the newspaper.

The content:

• Biographical information: Name, faith/denomination, church/synagogue/other, age, hometown, edu-cation, background, family, interests and hobbies.


• What do you like most about your work, and what do you like least?

• What two memories from your work stick with you most?

• What motivated you to get into this line of work?

• Tell us something about your work most people may not be aware of.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature weekly.}• RELIGIOUS LEADER PROFILE


47

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like your church to take part in the new feature.

Every week, we would like to feature local church leaders in our new “Religious Leader of the Week” fea-ture. We’ll feature religious leaders who play a part in making local faith such a huge part of our com-munity.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Religious Leader of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You candrop this form off at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].


Thank you,


Church leader profile form:

Name:Age:Faith:Church:Education:Hometown:Family:Hobbies:

What do you like most about your work, and what do you like least?

Tell us something about your work most people may not be aware of:

What two memories from your work stick with you most?

What motivated you to get into this line of work?

Church leader profile letter:


48

What is it? A template to be used to profile health care workers, including doctors, nurses, administra-tors and pharmacists.

Why should we do it? Health services and changes in technology impact readers of all ages, and findingavenues to introduce those in the health care field provides useful and relevant information to readers.

How do we use it? Contact your hospital or private practices through a letter asking them to fill out aform profiling one of their employees.

What kind of guidelines should we establish? Encourage the hospital to select employees who aretied to something newsworthy at the hospital, such as someone who is leading a new health class. Thisis a good avenue to get news like that in the paper without just running a press release on the newclass. Make sure the hospital understands that this not an ad for the hospital but a way for the commu-nity to learn about services and the people who make the hospital tick. The same guidelines should befollowed if you seek those who run private practices.

The content:

• Biographical information: Name, occupation, age, hometown, education, background, family, inter-ests and hobbies.


• What they like most about their work, and least.

• Two memories from their career that stick with them the most.

• Three pieces of advice for living a healthy life.

• Three pieces of advice for someone considering a career in the field.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature on a weeklyhealth page, thebottom of the frontpage or on a community page.

}• HEALTH CARE WORKER PROFILE


49

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX Hospital to take part in the new fea-ture.

Every week, we would like to feature a local health care worker in our new “Health Care Person of theWeek” feature. We want to feature doctors, nurses, technicians, front-office workers and others whomake your hospital such an important part of our community.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Health Care Person of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. Youcan drop it off at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].


Thank you,


Health care worker profile form:

Name:Age:Occupation:Hometown:Family:Interests and hobbies:

What do you most like about your work; what do you like least?


What are three pieces of advice you have for living a healthy life?

What are three pieces of advice you have for someone considering a career in this field?

Health care worker profile letter:


50

What is it? A template to be used to profile businesspeople from Main Street business owners and en-trepreneurs to movers and shakers in locally based companies.

Why should we do this feature? Local business is the heartbeat of communities, and showcasinghow businesses started, and what makes them tick and the services they offer is relevant local content.

How do we use it? Contact local or regional chambers of commerce, public relations offices of localcompanies and contact Main Street business owners directly. If you work through the local chamber ora public relations office, provide them a form that you would like them to fill out for all profiles (see formexample in this section). Request a mug shot of the business owner or a photo of the outside of thebusiness.

What kind of guidelines should we establish? Since this is business content, it’s important to makesure the chamber understands the mission of the feature: to meet local businesses and understandtheir history and industry. This format is not a place for advertorial content.

The content:

• Biographical information on the business and the owner.

• Three sentences that explain how the business owner ended up in the line of work.

• What the business owner likes most and least about their work.

• Two memories from their work experience that stick with them most.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature on aweekly businesspage, the bottom of the front page,page 2A or 3A.

}• BUSINESSPERSON PROFILE


51

Date:



Over the next few weeks, we’ll be launching new features in our newspaper that will profile a variety oflocal people in our community and would like the XXXXXXXXXXX Chamber of Commerce to take partin the new feature.

Every week, we would like to feature a local business owner in our new “Business Person of the Week”feature. We want to feature local owners who have interesting backgrounds, businesses and personali-ties.

Below is a form we would like you to fill out and send back to us every XXXXX by X p.m., along with aphoto. The “Business Person of the Week” feature will appear every XXXday in our newspaper. You candrop it off at our newspaper or e-mail it to [email protected].


Thank you,


Businessperson profile form:

Name:Age:Years in business:Hometown:Family:Hobbies:Name of business:Address of business:Phone number of business:Web site:

In three sentences, tell us how you ended up in this line of work.


What you most like and least like about your work?

What makes your business unusual?

What advice do you have for someone who wants to open a business?

Businessperson profile letter:


52

What is it? A generic profile template to be used for features that do not fit into any of the other setcategories and highlight average residents.

Why should we do this? The pages of our newspapers are about more than city officials and meet-ings. Showcasing how average residents live and learning about their background, their careers andtheir families is what makes local newspapers such valuable products to consumers.

How do we use it? Put the form in your newspaper and online and ask residents to fill it out and send itto the newspaper with a photograph to have their family and friends featured in the paper. In addition,the form can be used when readers call in with story ideas, such as a teenager who recently has be-come an Eagle Scout or other general recognitions.

The content:

• Biographical information: Name, age, hometown, background, family, accomplishments, interestsand hobbies.

NOTABLESWe recommendthat you run thisfeature weekly oras news warrants.}• MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR PROFILE


3. STAFF BLOGGING

What are blogs? A blog is a way for editors and reporters to engage readers in a less formal, more interac-tive way than they do with traditional news and feature reporting. They are short posts that are topical.

Why is blogging important? Blogs offer newspapers different formats to provide readers content andcan help staffs give readers more behind-the-scenes information from their beats. Content that fills areporter’s notebook — like a funny moment at a council meeting or an exchange between a player andhis coach after the game — that doesn’t seem to have an appropriate place in print is a great exampleof how blogs can offer additional and useful content for newspapers. Blogs also provide newspapers anavenue to pose questions to readers in an effort to find sources or find answers to questions. They alsoplay an important role in getting information to readers that your newspaper didn’t produce, such aslinks to state or national news stories that carry a local impact.

What makes a good blog? A reporter’s interest in a topic is not a good reason to write a blog. A blog ismerited if the reporter understands the beat or topic better than anyone else. Blogs should be dailydestinations for readers who are hungry to find information on a specific topic they know they cannotfind anywhere else and from a source they recognize can provide insight that is accurate. Good blogsare written in a way that creates a relationship between the writer and the audience. The posts can becasual – a quick snapshot of a quirky scene you came across while covering a story or a recommenda-tion on a good lunch spot. Blogs are as much about conversing as relaying information.

What kind of content should go into a blog? Blogs shouldn’t mirror exact content that’s already onyour site, but they should be new content or a different format for content that’s currently posted.Blogs should reveal the personality of the writer and help put the reader in the same location that thewriter was at when the blogger reported. To do this effectively, it is important to share specific detailsand emotion.

Is linking in a blog post important? Extremely. While the amount of linking really depends on thekind of content in the post, opportunities abound to link to businesses, organizations, Web sites andother relevant destinations. A heavy dose of linking helps your blog post get recognized by onlinesearch engines.

What should we name our blog? The topic of the blog should be clear to the reader through its name.This means that clever names for blogs sometimes don’t work if the reader has to scan through post-ings to understand what the blog topic is about.

How should we promote our blogs? It is recommended that every newspaper have a consistent posi-tion in their paper daily (like the front-page rail or on page 2) where the Web site is being teased. Blogscould be teased in this area. They also should be promoted within individual stories, such as teasing toan opinion writer’s blog in their weekly column.

What kind of headlines should we write? Since many blogs are — or will be — teased on the home-page of your Web site, it is important to write specific headlines on your topic. The headline writershould assume that the reader doesn’t know the topic that the blogger writes about on a regular basis.For example, if you write a political blog, do not write a headline that says “Trouble around the corner.”While inviting, the reader doesn’t understand the context of the headline if it is teased on the home-page under a blogs section.

53

NOTABLESWe recommendthat each blogpost should berelatively short;fewer than 300words. }


Can a reporter with a blog engage in opinion and commentary? No. But that’s not to say that blogscannot be written with more creative license than a regular news story. For example, you could report ina news story about a testy exchange between two city councilors, and in a blog post note that after themeeting you observed that one councilor packed up his papers and brushed by his sparring partnerwithout saying a word. You could use language in this post that might capture more of the exchangethan you would be able to in a standard news story.

What are some possible topics for blogs? As stated earlier, blog topics should not be driven by ahobby but because an individual is an expert in a particular area. That does not mean that a hobbytopic cannot be a blog, but the writer should be the go-to source on the topic in your community, and itshould be locally relevant. This means you should not do a blog on fishing if you’re not discussing thelocal scene. Here are topics to consider: news, crime, politics, sports, entertainment, photography andspecific niches. Experts in a niche of any of these areas, such as a reporter who covers youth sports orlocal courts, would make for potential bloggers. A small newsroom (a staff of 10 or fewer) could createa city blog where a variety of staff members contribute to the blog with insights from their specificbeats.

How many blogs should your newsroom produce?

• 20 staff members and larger: 10 staff blogs

• Six to 19 staff members: Two to five staff blogs

• One to five staff members: at minimum, one blog

How often should a blogger post content? Every blog, no matter newspaper size, should be up-dated with a new post every day. A post does not always have to be a 300-word, well-thought-out piece.A link to an article that is locally relevant from other sources is fine on some days.

How do we go about getting a blog launched on our site? If you currently have a blog platform onyour site, add to your current lineup. However, if you do not have a blog and are ready to launch one ornumerous blogs, submit a support ticket (gatehouse.zendesk.com) and the following informationbelow in our new blog request form. If you do not submit the information, it will be requested when yourticket is received.

What will our blogs look like? We do not yet have a blog platform within Zope, so all blogs are pub-lished in Drupal. See this Web page for an example of how your blogs would look: blogs.mpnnow.com.This will change when we have a blog platform within Zope.

New blog request:

• Newspaper:

• Submitter:

• Name of blog:

• Focus of blog:

• Why is the blog good for your community?

54


• STAFF BLOGS: HOW A REPORTER CAN BE A BLOGGER, TOO

Blogging for reporters doesn’t mean hours of extra work each week. From a single event, a reportershould decide what best fits specific platforms to make the work of producing consistent blogs adoable — and time-efficient — endeavor.

The story | A reporter covers the opening of a new cancer center wing at a local hospital. The reportergets the general information she normally would during her reporting: She talks to city officials, hospi-tal workers and patients who normally attend this kind of function. She gets costs for the wing, how itwas funded and what services it will provide, along with general timeline information about the project.During the reporting, the mayor shares a personal story about how cancer has impacted nearly everymember of his immediate family.

When the reporter gets back to the newsroom:

1. Write and post a News Now brief on the nuts and bolts of the story, perhaps with a photo gallery fromthe event.

2. Write and post a blog entry titled “Cancer wing touches mayor’s life.” The blog entry notes the best ofwhat the mayor said at the event, a quote-of-notes package from him with links to previous coverage.

3. Writes for the next day’s paper an alternative story format called “5 things you didn’t know about thecancer center.” This format works well because, in print, this is a traditional process and record story onthe opening, and the facts in the five things provide the reader information such as services, hours andother operational details. One of the things you didn’t know is a quote or two from the mayor on howcancer impacted his life.

Recommendations | It’s important through planning tools to consider blogging topics before a re-porter attends the event, but being flexible is key as well. The reporter may find a gem, like the mayor’spersonal story, which made for a nice blog. The five or seven quotes of note that are featured in the re-porter’s blog wouldn’t have all fit into the print story, making it valuable and unique online content.

55

NOTABLESHere is an exampleof how a reportercan cover a newsevent and presenthis or her report inthree formats – a News Now post,a blog post and an alternativestory format forthe next day'snewspaper.

}THE CONTENT CUBE | NEWS

4. COMMUNITY BLOGS

What are community blogs? Community blogs are blogs that members of the community — notyour staff — are writing and posting on your Web site. They can be blogs that are currently being pro-duced in your community that you link to on your Web site or blogs that leaders or members of yourcommunity write specifically for your Web site.

Why are community blogs important? Community blogs add a unique voice that your staff blogsdon’t. When you pick the right bloggers or content, you add to a portfolio of local experts who canspeak on relevant issues, furthering your site as a destination for your community to visit.

Who are potential community bloggers? There are many opportunities, and the list varies based onyour community.

• An artist on the local arts and theater scene.

• A first-year teacher on his or her new experiences.

• A local soldier deployed overseas or his or her family member on life on the homefront.

• A commercial fisherman on the ins and outs of the business.

Will we have to pay the bloggers? This will be a local decision, but we encourage newsrooms to workwith bloggers and potential bloggers who simply want exposure for themselves or their organizations –those who want to share their news and thoughts on the most relevant local news and information sitein their community.

Should we provide guidelines for community bloggers? Yes. Before setting up a community blog-ger, each would agree to consistent posts — at least three posts a week. Community bloggers' postswill be brief observations on community issues and events.

Will newsrooms clear the posts? There may be cases — a young student blogger, for example — inwhich an editor will want to review posts before they go live. In such cases, the blogger would e-mail theeditor or designated staffer the contributions on specific days for you to review and then post. But in al-most all cases, bloggers you choose would be cleared to post directly to their blogs.

56

NOTABLESSome of the community leadersyou connect with aspart of the Commu-nity Partner Jour-nalism program(see page 29) couldbe candidates forblogging.

}


57


The Content Cube | WebGateHouse Media

THE WEB CUBE

THE OVERVIEW

GateHouse Media’s Web strategy follows a three-pronged approach:

• Constant updates throughout the day

• Multimedia

• Reader involvement The strategy is focused on creating realistic expectations based on staff size, circulation and market ex-pectations, and it takes full advantage of syndication domains and provides training and development thatallows all newsrooms to manage Web sites that thrive in all functions of the company strategy.

OVERARCHING STRATEGY

There are three major components to the strategy:

1. CONSTANT LOCAL UPDATES

The goal | News that happens throughout the day should be published to different sections throughoutlocal sites. Updates are in addition to the print content destined for online, and in many cases updatescould also go into print.

How do we achieve constant updates on a consistent basis? A flow of consistent updates through-out the day is key to driving traffic on our Web sites. To achieve this goal while following the GateHouseWeb and print content strategy, it is helpful to think of three layers of content — scheduled, News Now andprint to Web — to organize the flow of content onto our Web sites.

Where some newsrooms may use too much print-to-Web content as the foundation of their Web updates,layer organization flips this on its head. Each of these layers builds upon the next to provide fresh contentthroughout the day.

• THE THREE LAYERS

Scheduled content | The layer of scheduled content utilizes a calendar posted in your newsroom or onyour server listing specific pieces of Web content to be published on specific days every week by specificstaff members. The goal with scheduled content isn’t to take a news story reported the night before andhave it appear the next day, but to find content that has a “today feel” to readers that can be set the nightbefore. Much of this content can be set up in advance to publish at set times. Scheduled content could in-clude Morning Minutes (produced by GateHouse News Service), polls, photo galleries, This Day in History,today's weather and more. See the sample schedule on the next page to guide you in setting up a schedulefor your newsroom.

News Now | With the new template, content in the News Now bucket should cycle through at leastonce a day. As the name implies, News Now is news posted to your Web site as it comes into yournewsroom.

• Posts could include newsy press releases, weather alerts, city announcements, brief advances andagenda items for a government meeting that night, police briefs and more. These items should be threeto four paragraphs and, when appropriate, can be timed to publish throughout the day. News items –hiring announcements, road closings, alerts – should be posted immediately. Some calendar items – aflu clinic or blood drive two weeks out, for example – could be set to publish within a day, but no longer.

• Some scheduled content can be published in the News Now bucket as well, including Morning Minutes,Today in History, sports results and schedules, and an event of the day.

3

3

• Here is an example of what a weeklong layer of scheduled content could look like, combined withNews Now posts, to produce a consistent flow of content throughout the day. Breaking news, print-to-Web content and other updates would fill out the schedule:

One week of scheduled and News Now content:

58


This content is new to the Newsroom Handbook}THE CONTENT CUBE | WEB

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAYToday’s weather Today’s weather Today’s weather Today’s weather Today’s weather

Morning Minutes Morning Minutes Morning Minutes Morning Minutes Morning Minutes

News Now update News Now update News Now update News Now update News Now update

Event of the day Event of the day Event of the day Event of the day Event of the day


New daily poll New daily poll New daily poll New daily poll New daily poll

Sports results/sked Sports results/sked Sports results/sked Sports results/sked Sports results/sked

7 a.m.

7:30 a.m.

8 a.m.

9 a.m.

9:30 a.m.

10 a.m.

11 a.m.

Noon

1:30 p.m.

2:30 p.m.

3 p.m.

4 p.m.

5 p.m.



Today in History Today in History Today in History Today in History Today in History

Weekend photo Reader-submitted News event This week in This week in ourgallery photo gallery photo gallery sports gallery city photo gallery



Print to Web | The final layer of content, on top of scheduled and News Now, is print-to-Web content fol-lowing the GateHouse strategy (see chart on page 73 and addendum on page 115). Print-to-Web contentdoes not have to be published in a single dump.

Consider each piece and decide two things: Does it fit the strategy? And what is the best time to publish itto the Web? News items should be posted promptly. News features and other appropriate content couldbe timed to contribute to consistent updates through the day.

What’s an update? Anything that is happening throughout the day. Based on the market, the definition ofan update could change drastically. For larger newspapers, hard news and breaking news should flowthroughout the day, but in smaller markets, simple press releases, police briefs and other community an-nouncements make up updates.

59


THE CONTENT CUBE | WEB

What are examples of updates? Start by posting press releases and other easy-to-collect information,and over time move into posting short write-ups from coverage.

Here are some specific examples:

• Breaking news | When you are covering a breaking-news event, consider posting several paragraphson the nuts and bolts of the coverage when you get to your newsroom or call it in to the newsroom whenpossible.

• Events and meetings | Anything that a reporter is attending that is happening during the day can beturned into an update. After attending a morning or afternoon meeting or event, post three or four para-graphs of the biggest news to come out of the event.

• Police briefs | Checking in with local police in the morning or after a morning deadline can make forgreat update content. Pull items out of your police blotter — the longer items — and post them as updates.

• Courts | Any press release you get announcing a development in an ongoing court case makes for agreat update.

• Obituaries | These remain one of the most viewed items on your site, so post obituaries as you getthem to your homepage as individual stories. See “What goes online and what doesn’t” section for morespecific recommendations.

• Press releases | Any release that makes an announcement can qualify as an update, such as an-nouncements of upcoming events, appointments and public service notices.

• Sports | Post announcements on clinics and camps as you get them. Every night before your sports edi-tor leaves, have that editor post a schedule of games and scores from that night to appear the next morning.

• Weather | Post weather watches and alerts as you get them. Sign up for alerts from the NationalWeather Service. Get information here on how to sign up for the alerts:www.ghnewsroom.com/article/make-it-easy-get-weather-information-sign-local-alerts.

• School closings and traffic reports | Post school closings as updates in a document of all closings.Any release from the city or state on traffic should be posted.

How many updates should we post? Expectations change by newspaper size. Reporters and writingeditors should post at least two updates a day. Here are some basic guidelines, but customized expecta-tions are established for individual newsrooms:

• 20 staff members and larger: 15 to 20 local updates a day

• Six to 19 staff members: 10 to 15 local updates a day

• One to five staff members: Five to 10 local updates a day

When should updates be posted? They need to occur throughout the day, so posting sports scores torelease in the morning helps. Individual reporters and writing editors typically should post an update be-fore noon and one after noon. Posts should primarily go up between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. You can post itemsto release at specific times in Zope. If a staff member is working a later shift, that staffer should post anitem to release in the morning.

Who should post the update and edit it? If updates are press releases or announcements, the re-porter or editor of that item should post the content, but if it is of a more serious nature, the item should beedited but can still be posted by reporters.

How should headlines for updates and the Web be written? Web headlines are very different thanprint headlines. It is important that you include many specific details in headlines. While headlines shouldbe fewer than 10 words for the most part, many times, a good print subhead makes a great Web headline. Aheadline and short story should be filled out for all stories. Short stories should not be the first paragraphof your story, but more like a subhead.

60


How can my stories get picked up by Google? Many factors contribute to search engine optimization(stories ranking high in Google or showing up in a Google alert). Below are the most important things that— if done correctly — can help your stories rank higher in Google:

To have your story appear at the top of a Google search list, make sure that specific names of organiza-tions, teams and businesses are used in several areas in your story. The key words that someone wouldsearch for need to be displayed in the following priority list:

1. Headline

2. First graph of the story

3. Beginning of a paragraph

4. Photo file names in Zope

5. Photo captions

For example, a story on the death of a local track star should be handled in the following way:

• Headline | Joe Smith, high school track star, dies in Normalville car crash

• Lede | NORMALVILLE — Joe Smith, a 2008 Normalville Regional High School graduate, was killed in acar crash Sunday night.

Feature headlines that appear in print should never be used online as the only information in the headline.For example, for the story above a print headline may be “Remembering a star.” That works in print be-cause you likely have a subhead appearing, maybe a photo and other layered information that helps thereader understand what the the story is about. However on the Web, often the only thing the reader sees isthe headline. A possible headline: “Remembering a star: Joe Smith, Normalville high school track star, diesin car crash.”


2. MULTIMEDIA

There are two major focuses to the multimedia strategy: video and photo galleries.

Expectations | Decisions on which multimedia to use should be based on the content. Here are someproduction recommendations:

• 20 staff members or more: Five to seven staff-produced photo galleries or videos a week.

• Six to 19 staff members: Three to five staff-produced photo galleries or videos a week.

• Fewer than five staff members: Two to five staff-produced photo galleries or videos a week.

How many photo galleries or videos should individual staff members produce every week?

1. Reporters should produce one video or photo gallery a week (if appropriate equipment is available).

2. Photographers should produce two photo galleries or videos a week.

• VIDEO

What kind of content makes good video? Not all stories are good for video. Here are recommendations on topics that work:

Breaking news• Fire• Weather• Accidents

Events1. Focus on one part of the event.

2. Don’t try to capture everything.

3. Pick a person or group to follow.

4. Tell one short story, not the story of the whole event.

There are several video formats that could be done consistently that have the opportunity to createa positive relationship between on-air personalities and viewers. Instead of having reporters shootingrandom video attached to stories that often don’t work, based on the quality of the video or the con-tent, these formats create consistency, are easy to do and offer the viewer content they can actuallyuse.

Weekend planner | A templated video that showcases the best of weekend activities and information,with anchored spots for weather forecast, local events, sporting events and tips around the house.

This week in town | A preview video that is similar to the weekend preview but looks to the weekthat’s coming up with standard formatting, such as weather this week, meetings on tap, big events thisweek, what we’re covering and following, etc.

How it impacts you | Taking stories such as a piece on fireplace safety and offering readers a how-toon protecting yourself from this happening to you. Or a niche story on winterizing your car, with a how-to video.

How we covered the story | Talking to a reporter before and after the story on how they covered it,the stuff that doesn’t fall into a story and behind-the-scenes goodies.

Find more | There is more specific information about video in our video style guide featured later inthis handbook.

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NOTABLESExamples ofevents: festivals,county fairs, reunions, schoolevents and significant sportsevents. }This content is new to the NewsroomHandbook}


• PHOTO GALLERIES

Is there a consistent schedule of photo galleries we should follow each week? While consistentphoto galleries from events and reader involvement callouts (such as Halloween photos) have greatpage-view potential, newspapers can find consistency through a variety of themed galleries.

MONDAY Best photos from weekend news and sporting eventsTUESDAY Best reader-submitted photos of the week (check-passing, education and other submittedphotos)WEDNESDAY Photos from one event covered Monday or TuesdayTHURSDAY Best sports photos of the weekFRIDAY Best news photos of the week

How many photos should be in each photo gallery? There should be a minimum of five photos.There is no maximum, but make sure you do not duplicate. Go to this page to find out how to postphoto galleries: www.ghnewsroom.com/article/screencast-add-photo-gallery-your-news-site

Do all photographs need cutlines? Yes. And all cutlines should be full sentences. Full names and ti-tles should be included in cutlines.

Where should photo galleries go? There should be a tab or section on your homepage where allphoto galleries can be found. All photo galleries should be published on the new template to the newphoto gallery section.

How can we sell our photographs? All newspapers should have a My Capture account. When news-papers are on the new template, there is a function that will allow all photos published in Zope to in-clude a “Purchase this photo” link that allows users to buy the photo through My Capture. Submit aticket to ZenDesk if My Capture isn’t set up on your site. Reader-submitted photos should not be soldthrough My Capture.

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This content is new to the Newsroom Handbook}THE CONTENT CUBE | WEB


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3. READER INVOLVEMENT

This section focuses on a variety of ways newspapers can get readers involved with their Web sites,from polls to Facebook.

• POLLS

How many polls should we do every week? A fresh poll should be published daily as an importantpart of the scheduled layer of content for your Web site (see page 57).

Is there a schedule of daily polls we should follow? While polls on local issues are what distinguishour Web sites from others, here are some ideas for regular topics, day by day through the week:

MONDAYS Question on a national news event from the weekend, question on big game from the week-end, question on a movie that opened over the weekend, question on a big local event that happenedover the weekend or a forward-looking question on something on the agenda this week in the city – ei-ther an event or a government meeting.TUESDAYS Question on a state issue.WEDNESDAYS Local sports question, national sports question, pop culture question.THURSDAYS Looking ahead to the weekend, a question on a big movie opening or local event.FRIDAYS Local poll question looking back on the news of the week in your community. Could ask whatwas the top story of the week or publish a poll about a single story.

What kind of choices for answers should we provide? Polls are more interesting and engaging whenyou offer more variety of possible answers than simple “Yes,” “No” and “Maybe” or “I don't know.” Also,avoid “I don't care,” which is a throwaway response. Offer enough variety of responses to engage almostany reader.


NOTABLESThis poll from theHornell (N.Y.)Evening Tribunedrew more than1,000 votes by offering an interesting varietyof responses.}

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How do I get polls on my site? When your newspaper ison the new template, you will no longer have to use PollDaddy to post your poll, as Zope will have functionality topublish polls. (See page 102 in the training guide on howto publish polls to Zope.)

For the papers that have not transferred onto the newtemplates follow this link to learn how to set up an onlinepoll:

www.ghnewsroom.com/article/creating-online-polls-your-Web-site-using-polldaddycom

How should I promote polls in my newspaper? Anchor the question on your front page (in your rail), page3 or the opinion page. Also, the question should go onyour site. There’s an editable graphic available you canuse to promote the poll in print.www.ghnewsroom.com/article/how-use-web-poll-graph-ics-template

{

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NOTABLESFind a full listcalled“Holiday/eventscallouts” on page67 that detailstimes throughoutthe year to seekreader involve-ment.

}• READER CALLOUTS

Reader callouts are a great way to unite your community. You ask readers to submit content – photos or thoughts – and publish responses online and in print.

All publications should build a highly visible program in print and online to solicit content from readers.

Every week newspapers should be seeking stories and photos from readers on holidays, life-changing events or special community events, such as:

• Asking readers to write in for Valentine’s Day about how they fell in love with their partner.

• Seeking photographs of a child’s Easter egg hunt or photos of kids dressed in their Sunday best.

• Seeking photographs of teenagers dressed up for prom.

On page 67 you will find an abridged calendar of weekly callouts throughout the year when newspapersshould seek reader stories and photos. The calendar notes when a newspaper should seek submis-sions in print and online and when they should run the content. More details on that list can be found inan addendum in the back of this guide.

The GateHouse News & Interactive Division will develop weekly promotional ads in three sizes that youcan use anywhere in your newspaper to generate interest. Also, an image will be posted on GateHouseNews Service with the callout promotions that newspapers can place in their promotional scroll ontheir site and use to seek submissions online.

In addition to the weekly promotions for 2010, look for local opportunities, such as major community events and happenings.

Here are some ideas:Sports | If you have a professional team nearby, ask readers to submit photos of themselves at theballpark. If you have a local team that’s setting a record, ask readers for their memories of the team.

Businesses closing or reopening | Ask readers to submit their memories of the business, whetherit’s a favorite restaurant, watering hole or store.

Local events | When you have parades, fairs, carnivals, car shows or other events in town where peo-ple are gathering, ask readers to send photos of themselves and their families. It’s simple to pair thiscallout with your coverage of that event.

Upcoming events or shows | Ask people who are planning to attend to say what they’re excited tosee and what they think about the show.

• GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Seeking photos | Place a promotion on your front page or run house ads throughout your newspaperat least one week before the event asking readers to send photos to the paper. Run that promotiondaily.

Seeking stories | Place a promotion on your front page and anchor house ads at least two weeks be-fore the holiday asking for readers’ thoughts or stories. Run the promotions daily, or if you’re a weekly,run it for at least two weeks. Provide a deadline for submissions and note when the stories will run.

What to run in print and online | Run as many photos as you can in print. Create an online photogallery with every callout. Start the photo gallery as soon as you have two submissions, encouragingothers to submit. Because of the nature of submitted stories, run that submitted content just in print.

How to promote it | To encourage submissions, place the promotion in a highly visible location inyour newspaper, such as the bottom of your front page or at the top of the folio of a local news or com-munity page. Also, place the promotion in your promotional scroll on your Web site or as a ranked storyon your homepage.

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MONDAYNeighborhood watch 7p.m., First Baptist Church,591-8900All are welcome tojoin the cl b No e perience

FRIDAYMADD 7 p.m., First BaptistChurch, 591-8900All are

ments will be served.

MADD 7 p.m., First BaptistChurch, 591-8900All arewelcome to join the club. No

is necessary. Light refresh-ments will be served.

MADD 7 p.m., First BaptistChurch, 591-8900All are

YOURNEWSQUESTIONS? Contact Editor Dan Marsh at [email protected] or (870) 246-5525

How to submitSend letters to xxxxx xxxxxx at xxxxxxxxxxx by Dec. 19 andwe’ll run them in our print edition and online at xxxxxxxxxxxx.com.Be sure to include the name, age and hometown of your child,as well as a telephone number for verification.

Kids’ letters to Santa are so much fun toread each year. Send us your children’sletters to Santa so we can share themwith our community.

Send us your child’s letter to SantaDAILY CALLOUT

EVENT CALENDAR

READERS’ PHOTOS

HOWTO SUBMIT Send your phcontact information to xxxxxxxx

Josie Sampson, left, and Nataold, throw snow at each otherding hill in Berkley. The two bthe snow. PHOTO SUBMITTED BYJA

NOTABLESHere are someexamples of howto display yourreader callouts invarious places inyour paper. }

• 2010 READER CALLOUT CALENDAR

JANUARYNew Year’s Eve photos | Seek submissions: Dec. 28-Jan.2 | Run: Jan. 4Snow photos | Seek submissions: Jan. 4-8 | Run: Jan. 11Martin Luther King Jr. stories | Seek submissions: Dec. 22-27 | Run: Jan. 18Super Bowl stories | Seek submissions: Jan. 11-15 | Run: Feb. 6-7

FEBRUARYBoy Scout stories | Seek submissions: Jan. 18-22 | Run: Feb. 2Valentine’s Day stories | Seek submissions: Jan. 25-29 | Run: Feb. 14Presidents Day stories | Seek submissions: Feb. 1-5 | Run: Feb. 18Lent stories | Seek submissions: Feb. 8-12 | Run: Feb. 25

MARCHFirst day of spring garden tips | Seek submissions: Feb. 15-19 | Run: March 3St. Patrick’s Day photos | Seek submissions: March 15-19 | Run: March 17-19March Madness pick the winner submissions | Seek submissions: March 15 Run: March 22 (picks) and April 8 (winners)Easter photos | Seek submissions: March 29-April 2 | Run: April 4-6

APRILApril Fools’ Day stories | Seek submissions: March 22-26 | Run: April 1Earth Day stories | Seek submissions: March 29-April 2 | Run: April 23Prom photos | Seek submissions: April 5-9 | Run: April 14Spring outdoor photos | Seek submissions: April 12-16 | Run: April 28

MAYCinco de Mayo recipes | Seek submissions: April 19-23 | Run: May 5Mother’s Day stories | Seek submissions: April 26-30 | Run: May: 9Best hamburger grilling tips | Seek submissions: May 3-13 | Run: May 19Memorial Day photos | Seek submissions: May 28-June 1 | Run: June 3

JUNEFavorite flavor of ice cream submissions | Seek submissions: May 17-21 | Run: June 4High school and college graduation photos | Seek submissions: May 24-June 4 | Run: June 8Father’s Day look-a-like photos | Seek submissions: June 7-11 | Run: June 19-21Favorite childhood summer memory submissions | Seek submissions: June 14-18 | Run: June 29

JULYJuly 4 photos | Seek submissions: July 1-5 | Run: July 6Little League photos | Seek submissions: June 21-25 | Run: July 12Cool drink recipes | Seek submissions: July 6-9 | Run: July 21Summer vacation photos | Seek submissions: July 12-16 | Run: July 28

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AUGUSTBest lawn pictures | Seek submissions: July 19-23 | Run: Aug. 3Friday the 13th stories | Seek submissions: July 26-Aug. 4 | Run: Aug. 13High school football practice and game photos | Seek submissions: Aug. 16-20 | Run: Aug. 30Back-to-school photos | Aug. 23-27 | Run Sept. 1

SEPTEMBERLabor Day photos | Seek submissions: Sept. 3-6 | Run: Sept. 7Grandparents photos | Seek submissions: Sept. 7-10 | Run: Sept. 12Favorite hat photos | Seek submissions: Sept. 13-17 | Run: Sept. 22Creative mailbox photos | Seek submissions: Sept. 20-24 | Run: Sept. 28

OCTOBERNational Newspaper Week stories | Seek submissions: Sept. 27-Oct. 1 | Run: Oct. 10Breast cancer stories | Seek submissions: Oct. 4-8 | Run: Oct. 14Pumpkin photos | Seek submissions: Oct. 18-22 | Run: Oct. 28Halloween costume photos | Seek submissions: Oct. 25-28 | Run: Nov. 2

NOVEMBERVeterans Day stories | Seek submissions: Nov. 1-5 | Run: Nov. 11Fall foliage photos | Seek submissions: Nov. 8-12 | Run: Nov. 17Why you’re thankful stories | Seek submissions: Nov. 15-19 | Run: Nov. 25Thanksgiving photos | Seek submissions: Nov. 22-26 | Run: Dec. 1

DECEMBERChristmas lights and decorations photos | Seek submissions: Nov. 30-Dec. 4 | Run: Dec. 9Santa letters submission stories | Seek submissions: Dec. 7-11 | Run: Dec. 17Christmas ornaments photos and short stories | Seek submissions: Dec. 14-18 | Run: Dec. 23Best of the year submission stories | Seek submissions: Dec. 21-25 | Run: Dec. 31

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• READER ADVISORY BOARDS

Another great way to engage readers in your newspaper and Web site is to create a reader advisoryboard. Here's a guide to setting one up:

Seek board members | Put a callout for applications on your front page for a few weeks. Explain toreaders that you’re starting a reader advisory board and ask those interested in serving on it to sendthe editor a few paragraphs on why they’re interested in serving. Explain to readers that the newspaperis looking for a diverse board and no city officials will be accepted. Board members should serve six-month terms and meet once a month. Select about a dozen board members. Go over the applicationswith newspaper leadership and inform the board members they have been selected. Write a column inyour newspaper announcing who is on the board.

How to run the meeting• The meeting shouldn't last more than one hour.

• Bring food in, based on what time you do the meeting.

• Consider videotaping the meeting and post pieces of it online.

First meeting | Give the board some history of the newspaper, talk about the importance of theboard, your expectations of the board and lay down some ground rules. Give the board a tour of yourbuilding and your Web site. Take a group photo after the meeting and run it in the newspaper and online.

Contact sheet | Have a "how to contact who at the newspaper” sheet built and hand it out to theboard. Also, make a "newspaper terminology" sheet so the board will understand your lingo.

Steps for the meeting

1. Start the meeting by updating the board on projects your newspaper is working on, a redesign, re-contenting, new features. Don't just tell the group what you're doing, but ask some specific questionsabout what you're thinking or doing and get their feedback. Don't consume the meeting with this kindof content, maybe two or three things.

2. Bring in a different department head (classified, circulation, advertising, press) each month and havethem talk about their area of expertise and give the board a chance to ask questions. Consider havingeach of those department heads build a FAQ about their department that they can hand out to theboard.

3. Do a roundtable discussion. Ask each board member to provide feedback over the last month — sto-ries they have liked, ones they didn’t, thoughts on coverage, ideas for the future, etc. Ask them to bringtearsheets of examples of what worked and what didn't. Encourage the board not to spend so muchtime rehashing what the paper was, but more about what it is today.

4. Bring a different issue to the table each month for discussion. This will keep the discussion eachmonth on track. Tell the board at the end of each meeting what the discussion topic will be at the nextmeeting. For example, for the first meeting, the topic could be sports coverage.

After the meeting1.The editor should write a column about the meeting and explain what got discussed and what thepaper is going to do about that feedback.

2. If you implement something from a suggestion or conversation from the board, find ways to tell read-ers that the new feature or idea is the result of conversation that came out of a reader board meeting.

3. Send out a thank you e-mail after the first meeting and remind the board when the next meeting willbe and what the topic will be. Remind them that they’re a sounding board for the community. Remindthem that they don’t have to wait a full month to provide feedback to you. 4. Build a reader advisory board logo and run it with all columns about the board.

• SOCIAL NETWORKING

What social media platforms should we use? Our newsrooms should set up Facebook fan pages first,then at least one Twitter account. All of our newsrooms soon will have a mobile device platform as well.

How are they different? Facebook’s primary purpose for newsrooms is to drive traffic to our Websites through journalism that creates interaction for the user, such as polls, photo galleries and readercallouts for submissions. Twitter should be used by individual editors, reporters and bloggers to sparkand join conversations as well as report ongoing news from the scene. Twitter also can be used to movelinks to breaking news.

Why should we create a Facebook page? Facebook, the leading social networking site, serves as a greatway to connect new online readers to your site. It is just another way to drive more page views. GateHouseMedia sites get more referrals from Facebook to our sites than any other social networking site.

How do I get a Facebook page set up? You can go to this page to find out how to build a Facebookpage (though training will be provided on request): www.ghnewsroom.com/article/facebook-your-newsroom-setting-page-facebook.

How should we use Facebook, and how often should we post? The goal is to bring fans from Facebook to local sites by posting several times a day to your page.

Here are some guidelines on the number of posts per day that newsrooms should follow:

• 20-plus staff members: Four to six Facebook posts per day

• Six to 19 staff members: Three to four Facebook posts per day

• One to five staff members: Two Facebook posts per day

Here are several ideas for using Facebook:

1. Post one-sentence intros and link to the most interesting stories on your Web site. The headline onthe Facebook page should be more conversational and not a repeat of the headline for the story.

• For example:Story headline Smith ousted as city council president

Facebook post headline Yet another shakeup at City Hall. Will be interesting to see how new president sets the agenda.

Don’t post every news story on your site to your Facebook page. Choose the two or three that are likelyto get the most attention.

2. Post a link to a story with a related daily poll.

• For example:

Headline Check out our daily poll: Have you finished your Christmas shopping? www.link-to-story-here.com.

If your poll is only on your homepage, provide a link to your homepage and tell readers where to find iton your site.

3. Post links to your online reader content callouts. Every callout should be linked at least once on Facebook. As you receive submissions from your callouts, post a story in Zope and link it on Facebook.

• For example:10 residents have shared their Halloween photos. Click here to find out how to submit yours.

4. Ask your Facebook fans questions to help generate sources or ideas for stories you are working on.

• For example:We’re looking for residents who had family survive the big East Coast storm. Know anyone? Let us know.

5. Post two photos from a photo gallery with a headline that says: Photos from Tuesday night’s highschool basketball game, find a dozen more at the link below.

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NOTABLESMuch of this content is new to the NewsroomHandbook.

The goal of all social media is tointeract withreaders and ultimately drivetraffic to our Websites.

Social mediatrends and tech-nology are con-stantly evolving.We will updateour approachand strategy asneeded.

}

How do we promote our page? Advertise and link to your Facebook page on your Web site, e-mail sig-natures and wherever your paper has a Web presence. Run a house ad in your newspaper letting read-ers know about the page. Consider a promotion in the rail on your newspaper’s front page.

How should we use Twitter? Twitter should be used differently than Facebook. Twitter is a way for edi-tors, reporters and bloggers to interact as individuals with followers as opposed to Facebook, wherereaders become fans of the newspaper and Web site. Each newspaper should have a Twitter accountwhere breaking news is moved, but individual reporters and editors should also have accounts.

Here are several ideas for using Twitter:

1. An editor could produce daily tweets of insights or behind-the-scenes activity in the newsroom. Ex-amples: tweet a summary of the daily news meeting; tweet followers on decisions you make on whatstories to cover; tweet asking for input or advice on how to approach a story; tweet asking for sourcesor some direction or insight on a particular local issue you plan to cover; tweet asking followers, “Whatare we missing on this story?”; tweet asking followers for reaction to stories; tweet your thoughts andobservations on current events and daily life in your community. The goal is to join the conversation asa person, not as the institution you represent.

2. A reporter could tweet updates and observations from breaking news events or big news eventssuch as a highly anticipated government meeting, Election Day or a festival.

3. A sports reporter could tweet updates, observations and insights from big games.

4. Anyone should send tweets with links to breaking news stories.

5. Do not send regular tweets with just a sentence and headline link to stories, unless it is big breakingnews.

6. You should not have a Twitter feed bucket on your homepage if you are feeding any of the sameheadlines into it that are going into your News Now bucket. If tweets from individual reporters and edi-tors are going into that bucket or content from an event is coming in fast (like a high school footballgame), it serves a different purpose than content already on your homepage.

How should we promote Twitter? Use the promotions scroll on the new template to encourage fansand followers to sign up, and include links to each page in the navigation on your homepage. Since indi-vidual staff members are encouraged to have Twitter accounts, tease a reporter’s Twitter account in astory or an opinion writer’s Twitter account in a column.

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NOTABLESWe recommendthat you tweet atleast once each dayon each Twitteraccount (no matterwhat the newspa-per size), and moreas news merits.}

• OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations are good additions to sites, and all GateHouse newspapers larger than20,000 circulation should participate in all aspects of these recommendations.

Linking | Link journalism is an important strategic function that helps our newspapers become notjust a Web site that offers stories and photographs of the day’s news, but rather information that takesreaders to more resources and content. Adding links to your stories is also important for search engineoptimization. Our Web sites are meant to be informational hubs of the community, and readers will findour sites more useful when information on the site doesn’t just include content produced by the localnewspaper but information that’s coming from multiple sources in your community.

What kind of content makes for good links? In every story, there are possibilities for linking. Con-sider the number of organizations and businesses mentioned in a 10-inch story and how many of thosecould become links.

• For example, a story on your local city council considering building a new park could have links to:City Hall’s Web siteCity council Web siteFacebook pages for city council membersPark district’s Web site

How often should we create links? Every story could have a handful of links. Aim for at least threelinks per story.

Are there types of stories that are better than others for linking? Blogs should have a heavy doseof links, as should columns.

Should we ever link to our past coverage? Yes. Instead of rehashing the background of a story, cre-ate links to your past coverage. This can be accomplished by creating related content links to that cov-erage or doing a search with a specific key word and posting a link to that search in your story. You canalso create links to external sources that are relevant to the story. More information about linking is de-tailed in content guidelines for the new template.

Maps | Google maps are a great way to point readers to a specific location of a story, just like you maydo in print. Using an embed code from Google, you can easily post maps in stories.

• Here are some examples where you could use Google maps as a tool to support a story:Fourth of July events in your area.Location of a new development or business.Stretch of roadwork that’s going to be improved.Location for a weekend festival.

• Go to this page for information on how to implement a Google map:www.ghnewsroom.com/article/make-google-map-july-fourth-events-your-region

Live chats | Chats are a useful tool to engage audiences at a specific time or about a specific issue.Do your best to let your targeted audience know well in advance about the chat. Good topics includechatting with officials on a controversial topic, introducing a new official and asking experts specificquestions on a timely topic. Use Cover It Live for this feature.

• Go to this page for more information on using Cover It Live: www.ghnewsroom.com/article/screencast-use-coveritlivecom-embed-live-chat-zope-story

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• WHAT CONTENT SHOULD GO ONLINE

Many of our Web sites launched with the expectation that everything that ran in print should go online.That is no longer the case. Below are guidelines designed to drive Web traffic and at the same time holdback exclusive content to keep our print products strong.

Because our print and online products serve different audiences and goals, the formats and contentthat go in both should be different. This does not mean creating “Web-only text,” but formatting contentdifferently and making decisions about what is appropriate for the different media.

Based on analyses of GateHouse sites — in both small and large markets — we have established a vari-ety of recommendations.

Many factors were considered in producing this document, including analysis of content that should beprotected in the print product based on its traditional popular value. Not every piece of content thatyour newspaper produces or every content situation you encounter is accounted for. When you run intocontent not addressed here, feel free to contact News & Interactive corporate staff to discuss those is-sues.

Through working with News & Interactive corporate staff, local management should decide whatshould and should not go online, based on local site trends, though this guide should serve as direction.Below is an overview of the strategy. More specifics on each piece can be found in addendum 3.

What should not go online:

• Full cop or sheriff logs or blotters.

• Public record (court proceedings, marriage licenses, birth announcements, etc.).

• Long meeting stories (recommend offering seven inches of the biggest issue of the meeting, if notthe top story in your paper that day).

• Long, in-depth, text-and-photo-only projects (that aren’t breaking ground pieces).

• Non-controversial, non-topical letters, columns, editorials, syndicated columns.

• Community columns and general topical columns (such as library columns).

• Most human-interest stories (unless they have a significant wow factor and would fall into an “I’mgoing to e-mail this to someone” category).

• Feature stories of event coverage (school events, festivals, etc.). Photo galleries are a better fit for thiskind of coverage.

• Long game stories (similar to meeting stories, post the nuts and bolts of most game stories, unlessit’s the big Friday night football game).

• Most sports features.

What should go online:

• Breaking news.

• Police briefs (posted as individual headlines).

• Court stories.

• Short meeting stories (as noted above).

• General news stories.

• Politics and election coverage.

• Calendar content (as individual announcements where appropriate).

• Controversial or highly topical letters, columns, editorials.

• Useful features: recipes, tips, how-tos, entertainment, arts and dining.

• Engagement, wedding and birth announcements.

• Short game stories.

• Announcements: sports clinics, sports camps, school closings, upcoming events, PSAs, weatheralerts, press releases.

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How should we promote Web content in print? A number of ways:1. Use breakout boxes in print to direct readers to a related online poll.

2. Use breakout boxes in print to direct readers to more photos, video or other multimedia. Go to thispage for icons you can use to tease to that content: www.gatehousenewsservice.com/ghns_pages/x949369614/Online-logos-for-print-products3. Use breakout boxes in print to tell readers to check online for updates on a developing news story.For example, if you are covering a trial, tell print readers to check online for updates as the trial contin-ues today.4. Tell online readers that you were first on a story by running a breakout box alerting them to that factwith the story in print.

How should we promote print content on the Web? There are many opportunities to promote ex-clusive print content. When you follow the Web and print content guidelines (see page 114), you will bepublishing print-only features that are related to content you publish on the Web.

Here are three examples:

1. Online you publish an advance of a football game. You also have a print-only Friday feature about howthe game is the last for the longtime coach, or a feature on how it's the last game for seniors. Promotethe print feature in a tagline on the game advance: “See Friday's Your Newspaper or our e-edition [linkto the e-edition] for a profile of longtime coach Bob Smith, who is retiring after 20 years.”

2. Online you publish an advance or report of the annual Apple Festival. In print you have a special sec-tion on that event with a map of the festival grounds. Promote the print section — and the fact there’s abig map — in a tagline on the advance or report: “See Monday's Your Newspaper or e-edition [link to e-edition] for a map of the festival grounds.”

3. Online you publish a report that the city council has narrowed the list of potential city managers tothree. In the report, you include brief bios of each. You also have print-only profiles of each scheduledfor the days leading up to the council vote on the hiring. Promote the print package in a tagline on thereport: “See Sunday's Your Newspaper or e-edition [link to e-edition] for in-depth profiles of the finalthree candidates for city manager.”

Should we tease readers to find complete versions of stories by buying the newspaper or e-edition? No. There are a number of opportunities in the new template to promote your e-editionsand print subscriptions. Do not put taglines on Web versions of stories directing readers to buy the e-edition or newspaper for the “complete” version. This practice frustrates Web readers. What we are of-fering Web readers already is complete, based on the speed and format at which the news is delivered.

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Nearly allcontent onthis pageis new to the Newsroom Handbook}

• STORY COMMENTS

Comments allow readers to respond directly to a specific posted story and to carry on a conversationamong others who are also responding to that story.

How often should we check comments of a story? Daily, reporters should look at comments madeabout their stories that have been posted the day before and during the day. Editors should look atcomments on the “most popular” stories every day to ensure no inappropriate comments are beingmade about the top stories on your site. Looking at comments on a daily basis is important because re-porters can get tips and gather reader feedback. It is also important to ensure that comments for sto-ries are not inappropriate.

Should I get involved in the conversation? Reporters, using their full identity, should interact withposters commenting on their stories, especially when facts need to be corrected, clarified or explained.This is not necessary with every story you post, but if there is confusion about an issue, feel free to notewho you are and clear up a misconception about a post. Never get involved in the commentary of apost.

What do I do if the conversation is inappropriate? Every GateHouse newspaper has its own com-menting management system, which can be accessed by going to {Your site.com}/comments.

There are several choices you have:

• You can switch the “commenting status” from on to off for individual posts. You also have the optionto turn your commenting off altogether.

• For each comment, you have the option to flag it as spam by clicking the “Spam” button.

• You also have the option to set up your site to allow an editor to reject comments that you find inap-propriate.

• Don’t make any edits to comments, but if it is inappropriate, delete the comment entirely.

Before I get to the point of needing to delete a user, what should I do? Based on the severity ofthe posting, consider telling the poster first that the post is inappropriate and that you are deleting it. Ifthe behavior continues, warn the poster that his or her profile may be deleted.

Are there certain kinds of stories that I should disable comments for? That is a local decision, buthave a conversation before a story is posted about the pros and cons of the story comments. Racial is-sues, crime and political stories have typically been the most dangerous concerning story comments.

Can readers flag things they find inappropriate? Yes. A user will have to be registered/logged in touse this feature. They will also have to enter an e-mail address and a reason before submitting theabuse. Once a user submits an abuse, it will come to the e-mail address that currently receives those kind of notices.

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NOTABLESFind out in thesupport and com-munication areaof this handbookwho to contact toget assistancewith managingstory comments.}


VIDEO STYLE GUIDE

THE OVERVIEWIncluded in this video style guide are steps to follow to create a video story. These are simple guidelines.The steps should be applied to both news and feature video reports. They’re designed to help the videoproducer find a focus for video stories and also provide an outline for newsrooms to follow to bring con-sistency to a paper's videos and among all GateHouse Media video reports.

It also aims to provide structure to adhere to our targeted goals in our Web Cube program, which out-lines multimedia expectations for newsrooms.

THE STRATEGY

1. Length of video

Video lengths will vary at times. However, the guidelines here are set for the typical daily video reportyou'll file. If you are working on a larger video project, or these limitations do not work for your report,an editor should be consulted to determine if the video warrants departing from these guidelines.

News videos | These should be no longer than two minutes. If a report goes over two minutes, a discussion between an editor and a producer should take place to determine if it needs to get re-editedor it goes long.

Feature videos | These should be no longer than three minutes. If a feature video goes over threeminutes, a discussion between an editor and a producer should take place to determine if it needs toget re-edited or it goes long.

Hint | Typically, to get a two-minute, edited video, you should be shooting about 15 minutes of rawfootage, such as interviews and B-Roll footage (supplemental footage); about 15 to 30 minutes of rawfootage for a three-minute piece.

2. The focus of your video

In order to adhere to the recommended time limits of our videos, like in print stories, the most impor-tant thing to do before shooting is to find the focus of your piece.

Every video producer should be able to answer the following two questions before pursuing a video report:What is the story about? Like in print, a producer should be able to explain the story in one sentencebefore planning a video.Why should this story be a video? Here are some things to ask:

• Does the story provide some visual supplemental coverage for your print story?

• Does it provide explanatory (how-to) journalism, best shown in video; or, if just a supplement for aprint report, does it show something interesting?

• Does the story have an emotional topic/subject hook that is best presented in video?

• Does the story have an interesting “character” (subject) that is best captured in video?

• SHOOTING YOUR VIDEO

1. Shoot to edit

At the very least, your video should show something interesting for the viewer if just an accompanyingvisual for your written report, and/or at least have one source explaining the action of the piece with B-Roll footage for visual interest.

• Source tells story, answering the who, what, where, when and why.B-Roll matches or supplements narration for visual interest

• Or reporter narrates video (voice-over)B-Roll matches voice-over

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2. Creating an outline

Whether it is on paper or just in your head, just like developing a rough outline with print stories, a sim-ple video shot list and outline can help focus the video and save time in the field and back in the officeduring editing.

For example | If there is a car accident you have been sent to cover, figure out the shots you need be-fore getting on scene.

• Establishing shot of accident.

• Cut to police chief interview (describing the who, what, where, when, how, etc.).

• Cut to B-Roll footage of the accident scene over chief's interview.

• Cut to witness interview (with B-Roll over witness interview).

3. Different shots

There are three basic shots you should know and incorporate, whenever possible, in your video reports:the wide shot (or establishing shot); the medium shot and the closeup.

For example |

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Wide shot | Most commonlyused to establish a scene, goodopening shots to establish thescene for a viewer.

Medium shot | Commonlyused to bring viewers in closerto action.

Closeup | Commonly used tocapture emotional scenes andsubjects during interviewingand for detail-setting shots.

4. Sources should tell the story

Be sure to get the source(s) answering the basic questions of the event (who, what, where, when, etc.);let the sources in the video tell the story to eliminate need for a voice-over whenever possible.

5. Interviewing video tips

• Before you start the interview, explain what the interview will be like, and tell your source the processyou will use, for example: You will interview them, take other shots of the scene, edit the needed parts,etc., and ask them if they have concerns or questions.

• Try to keep the interview conversational — but focused — to get the answers you need.

• It is OK to go over the ground rules for a video interview, instructing the interviewee when needed. Forexample, “Don’t look at camera.” ”Just talk to me.” ”Please rephrase the question in the answer.”

• Try not to ask questions that prompt an interviewee to answer with a “yes” or “no.” You need thesource to tell the story narrative in the video. Keep in mind that questions in video interviews need toadhere to the same standards as print interviews. Don’t coach the subject to give a specific answer.

• Use nonverbal cues to communicate during the interview. For example, nodding, smiling, etc. Try tokeep quiet when the source is speaking.

• Like in all interviews, print or video, remember to ask: “Is there anything I should have asked thatmaybe I haven’t?” And, remember, our same journalistic standards apply, so get the spelling of namesand titles before leaving the interview.

NOTABLESWhen interviewingfor your videostory, keep in mindthat occasionallycameras (andmaybe lights oraudio equipment)may make peopleuncomfortable.

}

6. Getting B-Roll footage

B-Roll is TV talk for shots that correspond with what the source is saying during a video report. Thereare several uses for B-Roll footage. For example, it can be used to bridge two different soundbites youmight want to use from one source.

But B-Roll is most useful for showing your viewers what the interviewee is describing and to keep yourpiece visually interesting for the viewer.

Examples of B-Roll in an accident story:

• An establishing shot of the accident scene.

• Police tape.

• Broken glass on road.

• Emergency crews assisting injured or directing traffic.

• Reaction shots of witnesses or onlookers.

• Shots of your source doing something related to story (assisting injured, directing traffic, etc.). Theseshots are a good way to introduce interviewees in a video.

7. Extras that help tell video stories

Video stories can be helped by using existing content that may be available to you in your archives orthrough sources in the community.Are there archival video, photos or graphics available? (Example: Photos from the car accident thatcould be used as B-Roll or archival video footage from an accident at the same intersection a month ago.)Are there other photos or is there other art available? (Example: Do emergency responders havephotos from the accident, fire, etc., that you could obtain for the video, crediting the source?)

8. Audio, lighting and framing

Audio:

• Pay attention to background noise.

• Get close to source(s).

• Be aware of your own voice.

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NOTABLESWhen you get toyour story, be itbreaking news or a planned featuredpiece, get your interviews first,then get the B-Rollfootage you need.That way, you will be able to getmatching shots ofthe items discussedin the interview.

}

Lighting:

• Avoid background light.

• Watch for shadows on faces.

• Look for front-lighting.

• Avoid darkness.

• Avoid bright sunlight.

Framing:

• Remember the rule of thirds.

• Hold the camera steady.



9. Logging your videotape

A video log is a transcript of everything on your raw footage videotape or card. Logging is used to or-ganize your raw footage before the editing process to determine the footage you'll want in the finalvideo. Some producers only log what they need, noting the timecodes of the footage they want, inorder to go to that footage when importing into editing program. But for breaking-news video, you maynot have time to log your footage at all.

In those times, adhere to the shooting recommendations in this guide:

When you get to your story, be it breaking news or a planned featured piece, get your interviews first —then get the B-Roll footage you need. That way, you will be able to get matching shots of the items dis-cussed in the interview.

This will, at the least, let you know you have your sources at the beginning of the tape and your B-Rollfootage after the interviews.

• EDITING

Editing is the last step of the production process, whether you are using iMovie, Final Cut Express orPro, AdobePremiere or some other editing program.

Editing is where all the pieces of your video, source footage, B-Roll footage, graphics, voice-over, etc.,come together to make your final video report. It is also where you will bring continuity in appearanceand style to your paper's videos and among all GateHouse video.

1. Piecing your video together

• Lay your source footage down first in your editing program and edit the soundbites to get the storyorganized.

• Once you have your source footage down, insert your B-Roll footage over the soundbites, matchingthose shots with your interviewees words as best you can.

2.TransitionsEditing programs come with numerous transitions (wipes, etc.). But the three transitions you will wantto use most often, if not always, are the straight cut, the dissolve and the fade.

Cut | A cut is an instantaneous change from one shot to the beginning of another. (Effective uses:change scenes, points of view, the most clean transition, feels more urgent and more powerful. Effec-tive for almost all straight-forward news pieces. The most seamless transition and most unnoticeable.)Dissolve | A dissolve is a gradual transition in which the ongoing shot fades out at the same time/rateas the incoming shot. (Effective uses: to change time or location or both in a story. Or to soften a piecefor emotion. Gentler than a cut.)Fade | A fade (fade-in or fade-out) is a gradual transition from an image to black (or another color), orvice versa. (Effective uses: a feeling that something has ended or started. Should almost always only beused for closings.)

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NOTABLESIf you are using a voice-over to narrate your video,that should be writ-ten and recordedbefore the editprocess, to matchyour shots with thestory.

}

3. Opening, lower-thirds and endingsHere are simple guidelines for standardizing your openings, lower-thirds (or title tags) and endings.

Openings | Openings should include your site URL and the title of the video.

• Black background / Impact font / White / 36 to 48 points

Lower-thirds | Lower-third titles (or title tags) for sources should include your source’s name on topline and additional identifying information on second line.

• Impact font / White / Black lower-third matte

Endings | Endings should include your site URL, title of video, “GateHouse Media, Inc.” tag, and “Copy-right 2009” tag.

• Impact font / 25 point / White / Black background

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• ADDITIONAL VIDEO RESOURCES

1. How to post video on your site (page 93)

2. Basic video online tutorials (training videos and video production examples)ghnewsroom.com/taxonomy/term/126

3. iMovie 6 online tutorials (steps of the editing process, inserting B-Roll)ghnewsroom.com/tags/imovie6training

• EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Editing equiptment:

1. Mac-based: iMovie (latest edition) / Final Cut Express

2. PC-based: MovieMaker / Premiere

Cameras:Nikon D90 | $1,300 (includes body and lens). This is a good camera for a staff photographer whoneeds to shoot front-page photos and video. Canon HV40 | $850. This is recommended for higher-end video production.Flip Ultra HD Cameras | $150. This is recommended for basic video shooting and is compact andeasy to use.Exilim EX-S10 Digital Camera | $199. This is also recommended for basic video shooting and takesphoto stills.

Contact | Tom Sudore at [email protected] for more information on any of these cameras.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENT GUIDELINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Maximizing your templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

• Top navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83• Secondary navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83• Hot links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• News Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Top stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84• Carousel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85• Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85• Bottom sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Site services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Community information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Two sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

ZOPE PUBLISHING HOW-TO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Building your templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

• About your Web site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87• Vertical ad positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87• Add a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88• Creating a sidebar for a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89• Add external links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90• Upload photos to Zope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Add links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Add links to related stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91• Bold and italicize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92• Update, revise and correct a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92• Add video to a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93• Publish content to a carousel, highlights or News Now . . . . . . . . . . 94• Add a big package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95• Set your navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96• Create hot links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97• Post a breaking news story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 • Create promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99• Create a photo gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100• Create a video gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101• Add a poll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102• Create homepage sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103• Set up site services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104• Create a contact page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105• Reposition ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106• Schedule a story for a future publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107• Retract/delete a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107• Copy a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107• Manage, moderate comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108• Manage, moderate registered users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108• Give levels of privilege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109• Manage Zope users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Newsroom Handbook 2010Zope Publishing

GateHouse Media

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YOUR NEW WEB SITE is loaded with opportunities to anchor and promote your hyper-local content.This guide supplies newsrooms with the necessary information to maximize your content on these newtemplates.

MAXIMIZING YOUR WEB TEMPLATES

Site management | The new template provides newsrooms with many opportunities for customiza-tion. For consistency in content and workflow, we strongly recommend that each site have an internalcommunication system in place to approve changes in organization or structure of the site.

The homepage | The template homepage offers many opportunities to feature stories, photo galleries,promotions and other content. Here’s a breakdown of the kinds of content that should go into each home-page bucket and feature, plus the sections and subsections inside. All content should be published usingthe Web Cube guidelines for what should and should not go online.

TOP NAVIGATION This area should include the top news sections of your site or your most importantsections inside, such as photos and video. This area shouldn’t be used for online verticals, as those arepromoted directly above the top navigation. Ten is the maximum number of sections you should teasein this area. Recommended sections for all newspapers:

NEWS OBITUARIES SPORTS OPINION LIFE PHOTOS

SECONDARY NAVIGATION This area is perfect to tease important platforms, services and sections of your site. Recommended subsections:

• Facebook (teasing to your page)

• Twitter (teasing to your feed)

• Calendar

• Coupons

• Zip2save.com

NEWSPolice and FireEducationBusinessEducation

OBITUARIES

OPINIONSColumnistsEditorialsLettersCartoons

SPORTSHigh School College Pros OutdoorsYouth

LIFEHealthArts & Entertainment FoodGardeningTravelGreenSociety

* ARTS & ENTERTAINMENTEventsMoviesDiningBooksTheaterMusic

RECOMMENDED NAMES FOR SECTIONS/SUBSECTIONS

NOTABLESFor A&E (*) Ap-plies if not a sub-section of Life.

For sportsConsider specificnames of schools/teams. }

Zope Publishing | Content GuidelinesGateHouse Media

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HOT LINKS Three to five links to ongoing stories or topics in the news should go in this area. Linkscould include a package of high school football preview stories, all content related to an ongoing courtcase, Thanksgiving or other holiday content, H1N1 content and other themes. The longevity of thelinks should be based on their usefulness. Some links may need to be taken down in days, while oth-ers can stay up for weeks. Hot links aren’t a mandatory function of the site, and each site can decideif they want it or not.

NEWS NOWA consistent flow ofcommunity an-nouncements, newsypress releases,weather alerts, eventsof the day, MorningMinutes and the likeshould be populatedhere. Some sites maypublish obituariesand other social newsto this section. Thethree-to-four para-graph news itemsshould cycle throughas new items areadded.

TOP STORIES Thenewsiest story/photopackages of the day,which could be pri-marily a selection ofyour strongest print-to-Web content,should be publishedhere. These head-lines could remainfor a day becausethey are stories sureto drive traffic. Youwant these to remainon the homepageand not to cyclethrough as quickly asNews Now content.

PROMOTIONS This package, a horizontal carousel that runs beneath the feature carousel and newsstories, is the place to feature online verticals, calendar, coupons, contests, reader content callouts,special sections and other special promotions. This area is not a destination for single stories, butrather big packages and platforms.

ZOPE PUBLISHING | CONTENT GUIDELINES

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CAROUSEL Newspapers have the opportunity to cycle up to10 stories in the carousel, though four is recommended as agood number for most sites. Newspapers will also have theoption to have a single story/photo package. Use this spot todisplay story and photo packages from inside sections. Re-member that the homepage is not the front page of yournewspaper, but a place to display your best content to drivetraffic. The best uses of carousels focus on packages, notnecessarily the nice feature story that’s on the front page ofyour newspaper.

Good examples include:

• News developments throughout the day (business, city de-velopments).• Breaking news with a developed story and related multime-dia.• Election coverage or preview packages of special races.• Package of the best things to do this weekend, based onstories in your entertainment section.• Package with links to your high school football coveragefrom a Friday night or previewing Friday night games.• Your big Friday night football game or playoff coverage.

• Package of the biggest crime stories in your community on agiven week.• Package of the best of your editorials, columns or cartoonsfrom the week.• Variety of individual photo galleries or a collection of yourbest galleries of the week .• Special sections content.

HIGHLIGHTS This feature, which ap-pears below the carousel, allows youto pull out a single story or package forextra attention. This could be a guestcolumn, a home run from a regularcolumnist, a sports column advancinga big game or any of the packagesnoted in the carousel. This area couldpromote a local poll.

ALSO Links are an extremely important part of making thecarousel successful. It’s recommended that every carouselstory has links to:

• Related stories on that topic.• Related photo galleries.• Related video.• Related polls.• External links associated with that topic.


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SITE SERVICES Links to subscription information, e-editions, how to place advertisements, onlinenews submission forms, rate cards and archives.

MARKETPLACE This is meant to promote online verticals.

COMMUNITY INFO Links to sites of interest to the community. This could include sites run bylocal institutions, such as corporations and universities, local government bodies and other promi-nent local organizations.

COMMUNITIES Links to subsections of towns that your newspaper covers, sister Web sites in neighboring communities or government bodies of neighboring cities.

TWO SECTIONS There’s room for two sections next to communities. Recommendations includesports (listing subsections of high schools, college sports teams, pro sports teams) and Life (sub-sections like home, food and society).

BOTTOM SECTIONS It’srecommended that atleast three sections arefeatured at the bottom ofthe site. Newspapers candisplay two sections in onearea or one section with aphoto. Here are the rec-ommended sections:Sports, Life, Police andFire, Opinion


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ABOUT YOUR WEB SITE

YOUR WEB SITE, just like all GateHouse Media sites, is on the Zope4Media platform. Zope is a corpo-ration based in Fredericksburg, Va., that provides open Web source service through dozens and dozensof companies, including Viacom, Boston.com, AARP, Bell Atlantic Mobile (now Verizon Wireless) andNASA.

What benefits does Zope provide our Web site? Zope is a simple but effective tool for publishingcontent — and sharing content — among our hundreds of Web sites and provides your local newsroomthe ability to produce content fast and efficiently.

What does Zope do for our Web site? Zope provides the basic functionality for your Web site, such asthe content management system that you use to publish content to your site.

What does Zope not do? Zope is not in charge of design or development of your Web site. All local de-sign and the work of implementing features that Zope builds resides with the GateHouse Media onlinedevelopment team.

What template will we be on? By the summer of 2010, all GateHouse Media newspapers will be onthe Deep Dish template.

HOW TO CREATE, MOVE ORDER OF VERTICALS

1. When logged into Zope, go to the site whose layout you want to change.

2. In the header bar go to the link that says “Slots” and click on it.

3. On the left hand side of the page, click on the icon with the words “verticals_slot” next to it.

4. Click on “Add Widget.”

5. Click on “verticals_widget.”

6. Fill in the fields. a. Give the widget a title.

b. Supply the URL to link to it.c. Select the icon you want to represent the link.

7. Repeat Step 6 as many times as necessary, up to 7 times total.

8. You can change the order in which the verticals are seen by clicking on the white space to the left ofthe information listed and move it up and down.

Note Changes will not be immediately seen on the homepage. You will have to go to “Sections> Homepage > View section” to see the change immediately.

9. Refresh the homepage to view the verticals. (See Image 1)

IMAGE 1

ZOPE PUBLISHING | HOW-TO

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HOW TO ADD A STORY

1. Select the “Add” drop-down menu and click “Story.”

2. Add a headline in the “Headline” field. Skip the “Subhead” field.

3. Type or paste a summary of the story in the “Short story” field. Note This is the perfect place for what would typically be a subhead. It’s important to offerspecifics of the topics or groups in your stories in an online subhead for search optimizationpurposes. [See the Google Analytics Guide in Addendum 5 on page 121].

4. Paste the full text of your story in the “Story” field. It’s recommended that your story is in a .txt orWord file when you paste it into the Zope “Story” field.

Note If you don't see any spaces between the paragraphs, add breaks by hitting return or enter at the end of each paragraph. If this creates a space that looks two lines tall instead of one, try shift-return instead.

5. Click “Save Draft”

6. On the top of the right side of the screen, add a few keywords in the “Keywords” field. The words youenter here should be topical and will help Zope and search engines — like Google and Yahoo — knowwhat this story is about.

7. Add a “Dateline” from the drop-down menu or type one in.

8. Add a “Byline” from the drop-down menu or type one in.

9. Add a “Source” from the drop-down menu or type one in.

10. Check the GateHouse Media button under “Copyright” or type in “Associated Press” for AP stories.

11. At the bottom left of the screen, click “Save Changes.”

12. Above the headline, click “Publication.” Check the boxes next to the sections you want to publish this story to.

13. At the bottom of the page, click “Publish.”

It’s generally recommended that you publish all stories to your homepage in the appropriate buck-ets. Nearly all stories that are updated throughout the day, whether it’s the announcement of a concertor an obituary, should be published to the News Now section. The bigger stories for the day or theprint-to-Web stories should be published to your Latest Stories area.

NOTABLESHere’s how topublish a storywithout a photo.}ZOPE PUBLISHING | HOW-TO

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HOW TO CREATE A SIDEBAR FOR A STORY

IN AN ONLINE STORY you can run a column down the side of the page called a sidebar. Like a break-out box found in a print story, this can hold additional information for readers that may not run in thestory itself.

1. Go to “Add” in the drop-down menu and select “Sidebar.”

2. Fill in the fields that are empty. Give the sidebar a name such as “By the numbers” or “If you go” andfill in the content box. (See Image 1)

3. When you’re finished, click on “Save Draft.”

4. Find the story you have already written and want to add the sidebar to, or begin to write the story.

5. On the story page, under “Related Content,” click on the blue link that says “Add Related.”

6. Search for the sidebar you just created. Once you’ve found it, click on its name. Then on the nextscreen, click the “Select” button. Once you are done, you can close this window.

7. Save and publish the story. (See Image 2)

NOTABLESUsing these samesteps you can se-lect photo gal-leries and polls toadd to stories.}

IMAGE 2

IMAGE 1

ZOPE PUBLISHING | HOW TO

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HOW TO ADD EXTERNAL LINKS

1. Add a story as normal.

2. Click “Add Related.”

3. Click “External Resource.” (See Image 1)

4. Add title and URL. (See Image 2)

5. Click “Select” when finished.

NOTABLESExternal linksare displayedunder the storyteaser on thehomepage and inthe right rail onstory pages.}

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2


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HOW TO UPLOAD PHOTOS TO ZOPE

1. On the drop-down menu at the top of the screen that says “Add,” choose “Photo.”

2. The photo upload page varies depending on your version of Flash. Either click “Browse” under “Photofile” or “Add photos.” Select your image(s) from your computer.

Note The more detailed you are here, the easier it will be to find the photo later in Zope. It is possible that readers will see these titles in URLs and code on the site; edit accordingly.

3. Add a cutline in the “Caption” field.

4. Add the photographer's name in the “Image credits” field.

5. On the right side of the screen, add a few keywords in the “Keywords” field.

6. Add a “Source” from the dropdown menu or type one in.

7. Under “Photo file” click “Browse” and find the image file you want to upload.Note Photos should be 300 dpi resolution and be an 8 x 10 image. Upload RGB images when possible.

8. Click “Add.”

HOW TO ADD LINKS WITHIN A STORY

1. Once you have the copy of your story saved, select the words you want to act as a link. Example Highlight the words Naperville High School in this sentence “The former student attended Naperville High School.” When readers click on the words, they will be sent to the school’s Web site.

2. Click on the globe image in the tan area.

3. In the URL feed, post the URL.

4. Publish your story.

HOW TO ADD LINKS TO RELATED STORIES

1. When you're adding a new story, look for the “Related content” heading on the bottom right of thescreen.

2. Click “Add Related.” A pop-up window should appear. Click on the title of the story you want to relate.

3. Use the “Search” feature here to look for stories by keyword, text, headline, or for recently published stories.

4. Click the “Select” button.

5. Re-order the related items by dragging and dropping them in the list. Click on the triangular “han-dles” to drag and drop.

6. Save and publish to sections as usual. The links will show up under a “Related Stories” heading nearthe bottom of the story.

NOTABLES

To add photosto a story, find“Related con-tent” on the bottom rightside of the pageand click “Addrelated.” }

NOTABLES

Links are a veryimportant part ofproviding userswith informationthey will find useful, such as links to organizations,businesses and re-lated informationon your site. It’srecommended thatnearly all storieshave at least somelinks.

}


HOW TO BOLD AND ITALICIZE

1. Once you have your story saved in Zope, select the word or words you want to make bold or in italics.

2. Click the “B” or “I” buttons to make them the style you wish.

3. Save and Publish your story.

HOW TO UPDATE, REVISE AND CORRECT A STORY

1. Click “Content”

2. Click “Published.”

3. Click the title of the story you need to revise.

4. Click “New Draft.”

5. Edit the story as usual.

6. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen.

7. Click “Publication.”

8. Click the “Replace previous version” button.

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NOTABLES

If necessary,you can adjustthe sectionswhere a story ispublished. }


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HOW TO ADD VIDEO TO A STORY

1. Sign up your site for a YouTube account if it doesn't have one already.

2. Upload your finished video file to YouTube. Add a “ghsvid” tag to the video to make it easier to findlater.

3. If there is a text story that goes with the video, save it to Zope. Copy the code from the “Embed” fieldon YouTube's page for your video.

4. In the “Story” field in Zope, click the “Source” button on the toolbar. Choose a spot between para-graphs where you want your video to show up. Hit return a few times and paste the embed code fromYouTube.

5. At the beginning of the embed code, add <p> immediately before the <object> tag; at the end of theembed code, add </p> immediately after the </object> tag. This will add some space above and belowyour video.

6. Add something to the headline or short story to let readers know there's video in the story. Headlineexample: “Video: Sammy the Spartan bids farewell to San Jose State.” Short story example: “Watchvideo of Sammy the Spartan in action at a football game vs. Hawaii in October 2005.”

7. Add a “video” keyword to the story to make it easier to find later.

8. Save your story and publish it to sections as usual.


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HOW TO PUBLISH CONTENT TO A CAROUSEL, HIGHLIGHTS OR NEWS NOW

1. Publish your story as you usually would, assigning it to the section used to populate the widgetscalled "Features" for the carousel and/or featured areas, and "Highlights" for the Highlights area.

2. From the “Choose section” drop-down menu at the top of the screen, choose the homepage or sec-tion to feature a story on.

3. Click “Content ranking” at the far right.

4. The story will now show up with a large image on the left side of the homepage where you set it.

5. The original choices in the “Content ranking” dropdowns.

6. By default, the most recent story published in Zope will show up first. Other stories will follow in re-verse chronological order, with the latest news listed first.

NOTABLES

Content ranking:For example, “1st”“2nd” etc. can beused to pin a cer-tain story to a po-sition on the rightside of the home-page or sectionpage of yourchoice.

}


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HOW TO ADD A BIG PACKAGE

The big package enables a single story from any section to span across both the featured and newsareas at the top of the homepage. This should be used for breaking-news stories, ongoing coverage, ormajor packages. (See Image 1)

1. Choose “Slots.”

2. Locate the “homepage_package” slot and select “homepage_package_widget” from the menu.

3. Configure the widget. There are two options for this widget; “retain origin,” and “section.” (See Image 2) If you ‘pin’ a story in the carousel or the highlights area, click “Content ranking” at the far right.

a. Retain origin

Note If true is selected the story will link to the site the story originated from. If set to false it will link to the site on which the widget is enabled.

b. From the drop-down list, select the section under which you want the big package to display.

c. Select add.

4. Rank the story 1st or 2nd, etc. to keep its place and prevent it from being pushed out by newer content.

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2

NOTABLESWe recommendthat a newspaperdisable the fea-tures, highlights,News Now andRecent Headlineswidgets whenthey use thispresentation.

}ZOPE PUBLISHING | HOW-TO

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HOW TO SET YOUR NAVIGATION

1. If a section does not exist in Zope, create the section in site properties by selecting: Sections > Add Section.

2. Access the site properties for this site and locate "navigation_nodes." (See Image 1)

3. Select "Section" from drop-down menu and select the section you want to add to navigation.

4. When you've finished adding sections, click “Save.”

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2 IMAGE 3

• In content management systems, nodes are the actual content within a site and can be pages, sections, etc.

• To add subsections, highlight the main section, then follow step 3 above.

• You can also “Add an External URL” (for links to Twitter, Facebook, etc.) for your navigation by select-ing the appropriate node for what you need. (See Images 2 and 3)

• At this time, you cannot drag and drop individual nodes to change their order. Nodes must be cre-ated in the order you want them to appear. If at any point you need to change the order, you can eitherdelete all nodes and start from scratch, or edit the individual nodes to reflect the change in order.

NOTABLESWhat are nodesand how to doadditional setups.}


HOW TO CREATE HOT LINKS

1. Go to the link that says “Slots” and click on it.

2. On the left hand side of the page, click on the icon with the words “hot_links” next to it. (See Image 1)

3. At the bottom of the page, click on “Add Widget” and you’ll get two options.

4. “Hot_links_title” is where you put in the naming convention for your hot links. (See Image 2)

5. “Hot_links_url” is where you paste in the link you wish to direct people to. Include both a title for thelink and then the url.

Example Baseball would lead to http://www.mlb.com (See Image 3)

6. Repeat step six as often as you need to and you’re done; the results will be refreshed on the home-page.

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IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2 IMAGE 3


HOW TO POST A BREAKING NEWS STORY

A breaking news story will be a featured story in a section that is available to you. (See Image 1)

1. In the "Slots" panel, select "breaking_news_slot."

2. Select “Add Widget” below.

3. Select “breaking_news_widget.” (See Image 2)

4. Select your “Breaking News” section from the dropdown menu; origin can be set to “false.” (See Image 3)

5. Press "add."Note there is no save button.

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IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2 IMAGE 3

• Ranking a story to "featured" in your “Breaking News” section causes the widget to appear on the site.

• Un-ranking the story will stop the widget from appearing on the site.

NOTABLESHow to get contentto appear in the“Breaking News”area. }


HOW TO CREATE PROMOTIONS

These can promote either special Web sites, special sections or unique deals. This would be an idealplace to push users to coupons or other significant promotions. (See Image 1)

Content will display one image with a headline.

1. The image will need to be uploaded to Zope. Note The image should be no larger than 180 pixels by 150 pixels.

2. Create a story in Zope for each promotion.a. Enter the headline that will appear on the homepage.b. Enter “none” in the “short story” and “story” fields.c. Remaining fields are not used.d. Click “Add Related” and select the image/photo/logo.e. Click “Add Related,” create a new “External Resource.”

Notes• Title is not used, but required, so entering “none” in this field is fine.• Caption is not used.• URL should be the URL of the special promotion/section.

3. Once the story is created, it needs to be published to the appropriate section called “Promotions.” Note This is the section assigned to the “content_tease_promo” widget.

4. Since this is a standard section, content can also be ranked.

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IMAGE 1


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HOW TO CREATE A PHOTO GALLERY

1. Go to the “Add” dropdown menu and select “Photos.”

2. Add the photos from your computer to Zope, and click the “Save to CMS” button to save them toZope. (See Image 1)

3. Go back to the “Add” dropdown menu, and this time select “Content Set.”

4. Give the content set a name and a short description. (See Image 2)

5. Click on the blue “Add Content” link on the right hand side.

6. Select the photos you wish to use for the photo gallery by selecting the picture and then clicking the“Select” button beneath it. Add as many photos as you have for the gallery here.

Note The first photo listed under the “add content” link will be the photo displayed for the gallery on the photo page. It’s recommended not to post a vertical photo as your first photo in the gallery.

7. Click “Save Draft.”

8. Click on “Publication” on the tool bar.

9. Publish the photo gallery to the “Photos” section.

10. Your homepage will also display the new photo gallery.

Relate the gallery to a story using the “Add Related” link on the story page, searching for the gallery,and selecting it to relate it to the story.

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2

NOTABLESHow to link galleries to a story}


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HOW TO CREATE A VIDEO GALLERY

1. Go to site properties, add YouTube user ID to "video_user.” (See Image 1)a. This will create the initial feed for both the landing page and the homepage widget.b. Once set, there is a 15-minute lag from when the feed would become available.c. You can check the status of the feed here —

http://manager.ghm.zope.net/development/[SITE_ID]/@@remote/youtube_widget/index.htmld. Once you see content in the feed, you will be able to add the widget to the homepage.

2. Create a section in Zope that will serve as the landing page for video. a. Select "Deep Dish: you tube video section" as the view.

3. Add the widget to the homepage. (See Image 2)a. Go to “Slots” and select "homepage_media" slot.b. Add widget “homepage_youtube_origin.”c. In the drop-down menu, select the section you created for video, and that serves as the landing page.

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2


102

HOW TO ADD A POLL

1. Click “Poll” from “Add” drop-down menu in Zope.

2. Add a title, keywords and poll question, and poll options by clicking “Add Options.” (See Image 1)

3. Click “Save Draft.”

4. Click on “Publication.”

5. Publish to the section(s) in which you want the poll to appear. Note You must have added a poll widget

IMAGE 1


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IMAGE 1 IMAGE 2

IMAGE 3

HOW TO CREATE HOMEPAGE SECTIONS

1. When logged into Zope, go to the header bar and click “Slots.”

2. On the left hand side of the page, click on the slot “home_supplement.”

3. At the bottom of the page click on “Add Widget.”

4. You will have the option of adding a column or section. A section will be a whole rectangular boxdominated by a section. A column allows you to add another section to feed news into the rectangularbox. (See Image 2)

5. In both cases choose the section/sections you want to feature from the drop-down menu. Select the“false” option next to “origin.” (See Image 3) You must have a poll widget added to the section in orderfor it to display.

6. Click add, and your section has been created and reflected on the homepage. (See Image 1)

In the slot area click on the section you want to move and drag and drop it to reflect the order youwant the sections to appear.

NOTABLESWhat to do if you want to relocatesupplement sections}


104

HOW TO SET UP SITE SERVICES

1. At the bottom of the homepage there are six spaces for vertical navigation.

2. In Zope, click on the button that says “Slots.”

3. At the bottom of the column on the left, you’ll see several icons named “sitemap_col1-6.” Each ofthose controls a column with site services.

4. To add a column, click on “Add Widget.” It gives you two options: “sitemap_link” and “sitemap_title.”“sitemap title” will allow you to title the column; for example: Site Services, Community Info., etc. (SeeImage 1)

5. The “sitemap_link” allows you to add the link you want to connect to and the text you want to appearto connect to the link.

6. Once you are done, refresh your homepage and the changes should be made.

• Site Services Links to subscription information, e-editions, how to place advertisements, onlinenews submission forms, rate cards and archives.

• Marketplace This is meant to promote online verticals.

• Community Info Links to sites of interest to the community. This could include sites run by local in-stitutions, such as corporations and universities, local government bodies and other prominent localorganizations.

• Communities Links to subsections of towns that your newspaper covers, sister Web sites in neigh-boring communities or links to government bodies of neighboring cities.

• Two sections There’s room for two sections next to communities. Recommendations include sports(listing subsections of high schools, college sports teams, pro sports teams) and Life (subsections likehome, food and society).

IMAGE 1

NOTABLESThese are the recommendedlinks that shouldbe on each site.}


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HOW TO CREATE A CONTACT PAGE1. The “contact_us_slot” set can accept any number of contact groups and contacts per group. (See Image 1)

a. Widgets include:

• contact_about_widget This is a text box that can accept html. You can add your “About Us” information here.

• contact_dept_title_widget This is the title of the section that will appear on your contact page above contact information. For example, above the About Us information, you will need to generate a title “About Us” using this widget. Use this widget to create titles for each of your departments prior to adding the department’s staff information.

• contact_information_widget Use this widget to add your staffing information, including: Name, title, contact phone, e-mail.

2. You can have an unlimited number of “contact_information_widgets” for each contact under any specific department title. (See Image 2)

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2


106

HOW TO REPOSITION ADS

To change the position of your right or left rail ad spots, including your ads, events calendar, etc.

1. Go to ad_slot_primary or ad_slot_secondary. (See Image 1)

2. Highlight the widget you'd like to move up or down. (See Image 2)

3. Drag and drop the widget to change the order of how the widgets will appear on your site.

IMAGE 2

IMAGE 1


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HOW TO SCHEDULE A STORY FOR A FUTURE PUBLICATION

1. Edit and save your story as normal.

2. Click “Publication.” Select the sections as usual, then click the button next to the “Effective publication time” field.

3. Choose a date and time from the calendar.

4. Click the “Publish” button.

5. Keep in mind that you can't rank a story until it's live. For example, if you want to post a profile of acandidate on Friday to go live on Sunday morning as the featured story on the homepage, someone stillneeds to log in on Sunday morning and rank the story as “Featured.”

HOW TO RETRACT/DELETE A STORY

1. Select “Content.”

2. Click “Published.”

3. Click the title of the story you need to retract.

4. Click “Publication.”

5. Click the “Retract” button.

HOW TO COPY A STORY

There are likely times when you may want to share a story with another GateHouse newspaper.

1. Find the story you want to copy and click “Copies.”

2. Choose a site to copy the story to. Click the “Make Copy” button.

3. The story will now show up on the other site under Content, Drafts and can be published to sectionsas usual.

NOTABLESThis is ideal for setting content thatcan update the entire morning(Today’s Weather,Morning Minutes,etc.) See the con-stant updates sec-tion on page 57.

}

NOTABLESSyndication domains are a tool to share contentamong sites. Visitpage 6 for details.Submit a supportticket to have one put in place. }

NOTABLESThis is used for ex-treme situationswhere you need tocompletely remove astory from the site.In most other cases,revising a story willwork. }


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HOW TO MANAGE/MODERATE COMMENTS

1. Go to [YOUR SITE]/comments. Example http://the-leader.com/comments

2. Adjust the drop-down menus on the top-right of the screen to fit your needs, and bookmark thispage, checking it often.

3. Click the “Manage Comments” link next to any headline on this page.

4. Log in using your standard Zope username and password.

5. At the top of the “Comment Moderation” page, you have the option to switch the “Commenting sta-tus” from on to off.

6. For each comment, you have the option to flag it as spam by clicking the “Spam” button.Note For each comment, you have the option to “Approve” or “Reject” the comment. Rejected comments will be hidden from public view.

7. When readers click the “Report Abuse” button next to comments on stories live on your news site, ane-mail is sent to your news editor or another staff member you designate. This e-mail contains thebody text of the comment and a link to manage the comments on the story in question.

HOW TO MANAGE/MODERATE REGISTERED USERS

Readers are now required to register and login at your news site to add their comments to stories.

1. To change a commenter’s privileges, click the “View Users” tab at the top of the “Comment Modera-tion” page. Enter part of the commenter’s name, username, or e-mail address in the “Find User” box.Click on the commenter’s name.

2. Click the “Privilege Level” drop-down menu and set the commenter’s privileges to the desired level.


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HOW TO GIVE PRIVILEGE LEVELS TO COMMENTORS

There are three levels of privileges for commentors on your news site.

1. TRUSTED By default, all new registered users with a valid e-mail address are “Trusted.” Their com-ments show up on stories automatically. You can manage or their comments as usual if they post any-thing inappropriate.

2. MODERATED If you discover a problem user, this option allows site staff to pre-screen every com-ment before it goes live on your site. Click on the “Moderate Comments” tab at the top of the com-menting interface to view comments waiting for approval. Click “Approve” or “Reject” for eachcomment and it will disappear from the queue.

3. BANNED If a user is a consistent problem 100 percent of the time, the “Banned” privilege level willhide their comments from both the public view and the view of site staff in the commenting interface.You won’t see the user’s comments, and neither will anyone else, although banned users will be able tolog in and fill out the comment form.

HOW TO MANAGE ZOPE USERS

1. To add a new Zope user: Go to http://gatehouse.zendesk.com

2. Submit a new ticket in the “Zope: User Management” group.

3. Include the site or sites the new user needs to access, the new user’s full name, and the new user’s e-mail address.

4. The new user will get an e-mail message containing a link to set their password.

5. Once they have completed this process, they can log in at http://manager.ghm.zope.net/develop-ment/[YOUR SITE_ID] with their username, formatted as firstname.lastname (all lowercase) and the password they set in the previousstep.

To recover or reset a user’s Zope password:

1. Go to http://zaam.ghm.zope.net/

2. Log out if you’re logged in here.

3. Click the “Click here to reset your password” link.

4. Enter the user’s e-mail address in the field and click the “Request” button.

5. The user will get an e-mail message containing a link to reset their password. Once they have com-pleted this process, they can log in at http://manager.ghm.zope.net/development/[YOURSITE_ID] with their current username and the new password they created in the previous step.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ADDENDUM 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Holiday/event callouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

ADDENDUM 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Online glossary terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

ADDENDUM 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Online content: What goes and what doesn’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

• Breaking news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Police blotter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Public record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• Meeting stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115• General news stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116• Elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116• Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Society and celebrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117• Sports games and other sports content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

ADDENDUM 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

GateHouse Media vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

• Online vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119• Print vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

ADDENDUM 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Google Analytics Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

• Accessing the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121• Analyzing the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 • Advertising analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124• Newsroom analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126• Newsroom resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127• Glossary terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Newsroom Handbook 2010Addendums

GateHouse Media

HOLIDAY/EVENT CALLOUTS

•JANUARYWeek 1 | New Year’s Ask readers to submit photographs of their New Year’s Eve parties or time withtheir kids celebrating the new year.

Week 2 | Snow photos Ask readers to send in photos of kids making snowmen or playing in thesnow. Run the promotion seeking the submissions several times throughout the month. Also run thiscallout when there is a major snowstorm.

Week 3 | Martin Luther King Jr. Ask readers to write stories about their memories of Martin LutherKing and his legacy in time for MLK Day on Jan. 18.

Week 4 | Super Bowl Ask readers to write in about their favorite Super Bowl memories, a memo-rable play, a painful loss or a big win.

•FEBRUARYWeek 1 | Boy Scout Day Ask readers to submit stories and photographs of their memories fromtheir Scouting days.

Week 2 | Valentine’s Day Ask readers to write in about how they fell in love, what they love mostabout their partner or how long they’ve been together and why.

Week 3 | Presidents Day Ask readers to write in about who they think was the best president of alltime and why.

Week 4 | Lent Ask readers to write in about what they’re giving up for Lent and why.

•MARCHWeek 1 | First day of spring Ask readers to send in their favorite gardening tip.

Week 2 | St. Patrick’s Day Ask readers to send in photos of their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Week 3 | March Madness Ask readers to e-mail their pick for who will win the men’s NCAA Basket-ball National Championship. Run everyone’s pick in a listing with their name and their pick. After thechampionship, run everyone’s name who predicted the winner correctly.

Week 4 | Easter Ask readers to send in photos from Easter egg hunts or Easter programs at schooland church.

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Addendum 1 | Holiday/event calloutsGateHouse Media

•APRILWeek 1 | April Fool’s Day Ask readers to submit the funniest pranks they have pulled off for AprilFool’s Day.

Week 2 | Prom Ask readers to submit photos of their kids all decked out for prom.

Week 3 | Earth Day Ask readers for comments on what they’ll do to help the Earth and why: Will theyplant a tree? Clean up a park? Try a “green” product at home?

Week 4 | Get outside Ask readers to send photos of themselves — and even their pets — being out-side enjoying spring and taking part in youth sports and gardening.

•MAYWeek 1 | Cinco de Mayo Ask readers to send in their favorite Mexican food or drink recipe.

Week 2 | Mother’s Day Ask readers to submit stories about the best lesson their mother taughtthem.

Week 3 | Best hamburgers It’s National Hamburger Month, so ask readers to share tips on how togrill the perfect burger.

Week 4 | Memorial Day Ask readers to submit photos showing how they’re starting to enjoy sum-mer, from grilling to water sports.

•JUNEWeek 1 | National Dairy Month Ask readers to submit their favorite flavor of ice cream and their fa-vorite local place to get ice cream.

Week 2 | Graduation Ask readers to submit photos of their kids’ graduation ceremonies and parties.

Week 3 | Father’s Day Ask readers to submit photos of father and sons who look alike.

Week 4 | First day of summer Ask readers to submit stories about their favorite childhood memoryof summer.

•JULYWeek 1 | July Fourth Ask readers to submit photos of fireworks or Fourth of July celebrations (pa-rades, concerts, community picnics).

Week 2 | Little League Ask readers to send in photos of their kids’ summer Little League action.

Week 3 | Summer heat Ask readers to send in recipes for their favorite cool drink to help counterthe summer heat.

Week 4 | Vacations Ask readers to submit photos of summer vacations, especially notable locationslike the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, or quirky places, such as the world’s largest ball of string.

•AUGUSTWeek 1 | Best lawns Ask readers who take special care of their yard to send in photos of their mani-cured lawns.

Week 2 | Friday the 13th Ask readers to send in stories of the scariest thing that happened to themon Friday the 13th. The second week of August is the only Friday the 13th in 2010.

Week 3 | High school football Ask readers to submit photos of their kids’ high school football prac-tice and first game photos.

Week 4 | Back to school Ask readers to submit photos of kids on their first day of the new schoolyear.

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ADDENDUM 1 | HOLIDAY/EVENT CALLOUTS

•SEPTEMBERWeek 1 | Labor Day Ask readers to send pictures of their barbecues, picnics or other Labor Day ac-tivities.

Week 2 | Grandparents’ Day Ask children to draw pictures of their grandparents for Grandparents’Day, which is Sept. 12.

Week 3 | Fall Hat Month September is Fall Hat Month, so ask readers to send in photos of their fa-vorite hats.

Week 4 | Creative mailboxes Ask readers to send in photos of their well-designed mailboxes.

•OCTOBERWeek 1 | National Newspaper Week Ask local schoolchildren to write in about their favorite thingabout local newspapers.

Week 2 | Breast Cancer Awareness Ask readers to write in about how breast cancer affected theirlives or the lives of their family and friends.

Week 3 | Pumpkins Ask readers to submit photos of the scariest, silliest or craziest pumpkinsthey’ve carved.

Week 4 | Halloween Ask for photos of kids or pets dressed up for Halloween, or readers’ housesdecked out in Halloween decorations.

•NOVEMBERWeek 1 | Fall foliage Ask readers to submit photos of their favorite images of fall foliage in their com-munities and their foliage trips.

Week 2 | Veterans Day Ask readers to write in about their thanks for veterans and a short storyabout why.

Week 3 | We’re thankful Ask readers to submit stories on what they’re thankful for this year.

Week 4 | Thanksgiving photos Ask readers to send in photos of their friends and family at Thanks-giving festivities.

•DECEMBERWeek 1 | Christmas lights Ask readers to submit photos or addresses of their favorite Christmasdecorations and light displays.

Week 2 | Santa letters Ask readers to have their kids’ Santa letters submitted to the newspaper.

Week 3 | Christmas ornaments Ask readers to send photos and short stories about their favoriteChristmas ornaments.

Week 4 | Best of the year Ask readers to write in about the stories that had the biggest impact ontheir lives this year and why.

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ADDENDUM 1 | HOLIDAY/EVENT CALLOUTS

ONLINE GLOSSARY TERMSBlog: A Web site where entries are made in a journal style and displayed in a reverse-chronologicalorder.

Daily unique visitors: A visitor’s first visit to your site in a day. While one person may visit your siteand view the homepage several times a day, the unique visitor’s report records that person as one“unique visitor” for the time allotted.

Drupal: A free framework and content management system that GateHouse uses to build many spe-cialty sites.

Embed code: Text that is used to make graphics, audio or video (and other multimedia files) show upon your site.

Final Cut: Video-editing software developed by Apple.

Google map: A map including several entry points of location made at Google.com; the online versionof a map.

iMovie: A video-editing software that comes with all Macintosh computers.

Multimedia: A method of storytelling that employs more than one medium, such as a story with text,photos and video.

News Now: The brand GateHouse newsrooms use for alerting readers to new and updated content ontheir sites.

Page views: Counted every time someone visiting your site loads a page in his or her browser.

Ranking: Newsrooms can “rank” a story to make it stay in the same story spot and to prioritize thestory.

Social networking: A Web site on which a user can share information with others who’ve signed up forthat site.

Syndication domains: An automated system of customized content streams within Zope that canfeed local newspaper Web sites.

ZenDesk: Where GateHouse sites can get their Web sites’ technical issues resolved.

Zope: The program used to manage content on your Web site.

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Addendum 2 | Online glossary termsGateHouse Media

WHAT GOES ONLINE, WHAT DOES NOT•BREAKING NEWSWhat should go online? All breaking news updates and breaking news multimedia, but these shouldprimarily go into your News Now box or most recent stories area. If you are updating the story through-out the day, put the word “Update” before the headline.

What should not go online? Nothing. If it is breaking news, post it as soon as you can. Traffic figuresat GateHouse sites show repeatedly that breaking news is extremely popular with readers.

Should full stories be posted? Only if more details and additional color add to the story. Many timesyour update will do the job. If a full story is offered, un-publish your update and post your full story toyour homepage.

•POLICE BLOTTERWhat should go online? Pull the best items (two to three) for daily papers and (five to seven) fromyour weekly blotter for non-daily papers and post them as individual stories. Weekly papers should postcontent from their blotter daily.

What should not go online? Don’t post your entire police blotter online as a single story.

Why? Crime content has proven to be quite popular on many of our sites. Posting individual storiesfrom your blotter creates the opportunity for more views. When staff members collect the daily policeblotter, encourage them to obtain more information for several of the items, which then makes it easierto produce individual story posts from your blotter. Police blotter content in print has proven in mostmarkets to be one of the most popular features. Allowing the full blotter to live in print and the highestpotential online interest items to be on the Web allows content to succeed on both platforms.

•COURTSWhat should go online? Any court-related item that is part of your ongoing coverage or releases youreceive from local or state court.

What should not go online? Nothing. Post as much court-related content as you can.

How should I present ongoing courts coverage? If you are covering a key court case, create a newstory in Zope and add links to all of your coverage of that case. That story becomes your “landing page,”where readers can find all sorts of information about that case in link form. As part of every story youpost on that case, offer a link back to the package.

•PUBLIC RECORDWhat should go online? Do not post public record listings, such as marriage licenses or blotter lists.

Why? Record content is a traditional print offering and is often something readers pick the newspaperup for. Long lists are unwieldy for online readers to digest.

•MEETING STORIESWhat should go online? Nearly all government meeting stories should be posted online. Unless it isthe most controversial story of the year, post the first few paragraphs of the print story (five or six) andrun the “in other business” list at the bottom of the story.

What should not go online? If the story is more of a process story and would typically fall inside yournewspaper, you may not want to post the story.

Why does this format work? Numerous surveys have shown that readers want the details in quickformat online, and that is also true for our meeting coverage. This does not mean you have to rewritethe stories, but rather post the most important details and action items.

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Addendum 3 | Online contentGateHouse Media

•GENERAL NEWS STORIESWhat should go online? Politics, business, announcements, press conferences and other significantevent stories.

Should these stories be normal print lengths (15 to 20 inches)? Most announcement and pressconference content can go up as brief updates. Use the breaking news rule of additional detail andcolor to decide if the full “print” stories should go online under these topics.

•PROJECTSWhat should go online? If there is multimedia associated with the reporting, then you should post thecontent online. Examples would include maps, polls, video and photo galleries.

What should not go online? If it is just straight text and photos, do not post it online, as most long, in-depth reading has proven not to engage online.

•ELECTIONSWhat should go online? Full coverage of election news is recommended. This includes advance andnight-of coverage. It is recommended that on Election Day, newspapers post results throughout the dayand night.

What should not go online? Nothing. Post all election-related content.

How should content be packaged? Build a “landing” page or a package of links in Zope for all of yourelection content to live as you preview races. On the night of the election, consider live blogs of cover-age and packaging all of your races in one big story with links to all the races.

•CALENDARWhat should go online? All content from all of your calendars (including lifestyle and sports) shouldbe offered online on your calendar tab or application. Announcements of new events provide good up-date content and are good to publish to your News Now or recent update area, as well as having themlive in your calendar area.

How often should the calendar be updated? Update it daily with new submissions.

•OBITUARIESWhat should go online? For sites that post obituaries in the content management system, obituariesshould be posted as soon as they are received and edited.

Where should obituaries appear? In the News Now section of your Web site. The style should readlike this: Obituary: Person’s name, age and city. If your obits are produced through Legacy.com, you willhave a feed for them turned on when you transition to the new template that will automatically featurethe names on the homepage of your site in an Obituaries section.

Why? Obituaries are a huge traffic driver. If readers know that they might be able to find contentthroughout the day, they are likely to return to your site throughout the day.

Guidelines: If you are running obituaries as print-only content, paid or unpaid, also publish online as individual headlines in News Now and obituaries sections the name, age, hometown, date of death andparagraph announcing the services and where to send donations, if appropriate.

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ADDENDUM 3 | ONLINE CONTENT: WHAT GOES ONLINE, WHAT DOES NOT


•OPINIONWhat should go online? Anything controversial or anything generating conversation in your commu-nity. All opinion content can go online, but it should be controversial or concern a significant commu-nity issue to go online. Political cartoons have proven to be popular. Sign up for a feed from theGateHouse News Service for cartoons to automatically post, or post local cartoons if you have them.

What should not go online? Thank-you letters, general columns (that are not controversial), editori-als (that are not controversial) and syndicated columns.

Should regular columns appear from local writers and staff members? For the most part, theyshould not appear online. If the columnist has a significant following, consider posting it online, butmost general columns are best fit for print. Unlike your print product, online readers are not necessarilylooking for the same column on a specific day each week. If the column is controversial, you shouldpost it.

Why? Opinion content works online when that content takes strong stances. Lighter content and syn-dicate content has proven to be not as popular with readers, based on average analytics.

•LIFESTYLEWhat should go online? Not everything. Some lifestyle content is useful to post. Those topics wouldinclude: food (recipes and tips), home and garden and health (how-to and tip-oriented content), enter-tainment (museums, theater, movies, art shows) and dining (lists, previews, reviews and day trips).

What should not go online? Most human interest stories, unless the story is extremely unique, aweird news story or a strong topical story, should not go online. An example of a strong topical storywould be a piece on a home or historical renovation project. Most everyday features should not go on-line. Long feature stories on the topics above, such as features on the local hospital’s new piece of tech-nology, should not go online. Coverage of events that is more than a day old should not go online. Whatshould go online from event coverage are photo galleries from those events.

Why? Content that is useful and can be used quickly, such as recipes and dining reviews, has proven tobe high on page view reports across the company. Long feature stories that don’t fall into this area donot resonate as well.

•SOCIETY AND CELEBRATIONSWhat should go online? Weddings, engagements, anniversaries and births. Any club photos should beposted in a weekly reader-submitted gallery.

How should the content be packaged? Post the content as individual stories and create a subsectionfor each of the topics.

When should the content be posted? If you are already publishing individual announcements withphotos online, continue to do so. If you are not publishing such announcements online but preservingthem as unique print content, publish them to the Web within one week after they run in print. This way,you get the print-only benefit but can also generate Web traffic with the same content.

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•SPORTS: GAME STORIESWhat should go online? Game stories should be posted online. But for regular-season games, don’tpost a 20-inch game story. Just like meeting coverage, post the first five paragraphs of the game, alongwith a box score if you have one. Make sure the paragraphs touch on the leading scorers and score.

What should not go online? Post it all, but post short stories.

How should I package sports content? Since most of the sports content that is going online has todo with specific teams, consider creating subsections and landing pages for individual schools or teamsports.

Should we post scores as soon as games are over? For regular-season games (outside of prep foot-ball), the effort and return has proven not to be worth it. Analytics show that readers will go to our siteson Friday night for high school football scores, so post scores as games end in the fall. But the effort isnot worth it in the winter and spring. Also, consider posting scores as soon as games end for prep statetournaments, but promote in print the fact that readers can find that content online.

•SPORTS: OTHER CONTENTWhat should go online? Outdoors content should have its own section, depending on your location,and all content, including the calendar, should be online. Sports announcements should fall into theNews Now or latest section of your site and should be posted as they are received. Pro sports contentin many markets may be a good fit for your sites, based on the popularity. If you decide to post thiscontent, you need to ensure that all relevant wire content is moved on a timely basis.

What should not go online? Sports features, for the most part, are a better fit for print, unless the fea-ture is on a local celebrity.

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VENDORSTHE FOLLOWING ARE VENDORS that provide services that are built into your Web site, or are Gate-House Media preferred/endorsed vendors with centrally negotiated contracts and fees.

•ONLINE VENDORS

Adicio | The exclusive GateHouse provider of a white label, online real estate vertical, with opportunityfor local sales.

Associated Press | Primarily used online for its News Registry system — or hNews — which tags,tracks and delivers reports on the unauthorized use of your content across the Internet. hNews code isbuilt into story pages

Blackbox Media | Used to place advertising into available inventory on GateHouse Media Web sitesfor a revenue share.

Digital Media Communications | This company converts newspaper ads — such as jobs or real es-tate — into an online video commercial that can be placed on GateHouse Media Web sites.

Dobie Media | Provides an online community calendar based on user-generated content, as well as areverse publishing tool. Fees apply to both, as do revenue shares based on advertising sold into theproduct.

Financial Content | Supplies an online stocks and financials widget.

Gabriels | The exclusive GateHouse provider of a white label, online auto vertical.

Legacy.com | Obituary Web site that is also the exclusive GateHouse provider of white label, onlineobituaries service.

Local.com | Exclusive GateHouse provider of a branded Internet yellow pages directory.

NewsBank | Exclusive GateHouse provider of print and online content archives, available via searchon all GateHouse news Web sites.

News Distribution Network | Exclusive GateHouse provider of an online video player solution that al-lows properties to post local video, syndicate video within the GateHouse and NDN network, as well asto serve local advertising into the player.

Remembering When | Exclusive GateHouse provider of a white label, online ads vertical for anniver-saries, birth announcements, engagements, weddings and other celebrations.

Second Street Media (MyCapture) | Provide sites with photo reprint services

Tecnavia | Preferred GateHouse provider of e-editions. GateHouse clients also receive a free onlinesubscription management system, which allows readers to manage their e-edition or print subscrip-tions, and newspapers can also offer other paid products through the system.

Travidia | Preferred GateHouse vendor converts print ads into online ads.

Verve Wireless | Exclusive GateHouse provider of SMS text messaging and mobile Web sites.

Weather.com | Preferred GateHouse provider of online weather.

Yahoo! Hot Jobs | Online recruitment product available for local job listing sales.

Zope | Exclusive GateHouse provider of our core online content management system, as well as theprovider of the online classified ad system, Z Classified.

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Addendum 4 | GateHouse Media vendorsGateHouse Media

•PRINT VENDORSFollowing are GateHouse Media print preferred/endorsed vendors with rates centrally negotiated bythe company.

AccuWeather | Preferred GateHouse print vendor for weather.

Font Bureau | Preferred GateHouse vendor for fonts.

Tribune Media Services | A preferred vendor of comics. More specifically, TMS offers a pre-packagedbut customizable comics and puzzles page that is available through GateHouse News Service for a fee.TMS is also a preferred vendor of TV books and listings.

United Media | A preferred vendor of comics. United Media also offers a pre-packaged but customiz-able comics and puzzles page that is available through GateHouse News Service for a fee.

For more information on any of these vendors or services, please contact Brad Dennison, VicePresident of News & Interactive, at [email protected], or Wendy Barnes, Director of Online Advertising, at [email protected].

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ADDENDUM 4 | GATEHOUSE MEDIA VENDORS

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Addendum 5 | Google Analytics GuideGateHouse Media

GOOGLE ANALYTICSTHIS GUIDE EXPLAINS how to access your Web statistics and offers tips for utilizing the informationfor both newsrooms and advertising staffs.

1. ACCESSING THE DATA

How do I log into my account? You have received a Gmail username and password. Go tohttp://www.google.com/analytics/ and click on the “access analytics” blue tab. Put your usernameand password into the appropriate fields, and on the next screen select “view report.”

What if my newspaper already has a Google account? Fill out a support ticket by going to this link— gatehouse.zendesk.com/tickets/new — and ask that your newspaper’s current username and pass-word override the one we have created.

How do I select the dates for my report? In the upper-right corner of the page, click on the datesthat are featured. A calendar will pop up, and you can select the dates you want featured.

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ADDENDUM 5 | GOOGLE ANALYTICS GUIDE

How do I see how many people visited my site? In the middle of the page, under “site usage,”click on “visits.”

How can I see how many page views we’re getting? Under “site usage,” click on “page views.”

How can I get more information about who is visiting my site? Under the “dashboard” area on theupper-left side of the site, click on overview, which will provide you information on new visitors, timespent on your site and more.

How can I search for the most viewed stories on my site? The “Top Content” report in Google Ana-lytics can tell you the number of page views for each story in a selected date range. You can click onthat area in the bottom-right corner of the site.

Can I see the most viewed stories by sections? Under the “Top Content” area click on “Event Track-ing” and then click on “Categories.” Select the name of your newspaper. There you can select by topicto see the most viewed stories by section.

How far back can I search for results? You can search for content back to Jan. 1, 2009.

Can I get automatic reports? Yes. At the top of the page above the “dashboard” header, click on “e-mail.” There you can enter e-mail addresses where you want reports going to and dictate what kind ofcontent you want. You also can create reports on a time schedule.

2. ANALYZING THE DATA

What key numbers will show how my site is doing overall? Tracking page views and daily uniquevisitors is the best way to see how your site is trending. Steady growth in both is the goal, and compar-ing these numbers month over month and year over year will show if your Web strategy is working.

While page views and daily uniques will tell you how your site is doing overall, you can dig a little deeperfor guidance on what action you can take to provide more content visitors want. [More on that below.]

What is the difference between page views and daily uniques? Average daily unique visitor meas-ures the average number of unique browsers accessing your site per 24 hours in the past 30 days.Using daily vs. weekly or monthly unique visitors helps reduce the duplication caused by visitors delet-ing cookies or accessing your site through different browsers.

Page views and uniques tell me what is happening to my site. What numbers can tell me whatto do to drive more traffic? Studying your analytics report regularly can help you decide what – andwhat not – to publish. For example, you may find that because your readership area includes a militarybase, military-related stories draw page views, but lifestyle content does not. Therefore, you may con-sider publishing more content related to the base and military issues, and less lifestyle content.

Study the categories of content in the top 10 list of a given week or month. Likewise, study the bottom10. Studying this content can help you adjust your newsroom Web strategy.

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NOTABLES

It is important toremember that agoal of GateHouseWeb strategy is tofocus newsroomresources on pub-lishing content weknow drives trafficand holding backfor our print read-ers content thatworks better in ournewspapers.

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3. ADVERTISING ANALYSIS

What kind of information is important to get in front of advertisers? In conjunction with the “newvisitor” and “returning visitor” reports, you can provide realistic audience reach and loyalty reports toyour customers. It’s recommended that you show advertisers these numbers as you experiencegrowth. You can include a copy of the monthly site traffic summary with the advertiser’s 30-day per-formance reports for individual campaigns. When pricing bundles with print and online, your extendedreach including print circulation and daily unique visitors can be used to help determine your valueproposition.

What numbers should local ad staffs look at? Each month, look for changes in page views, dailyunique visitors and overall visits. Increases in any of these areas are positive stories to tell advertisers.Traffic will have natural fluctuations daily, weekly and seasonally. Watch for trends and mark milestonesin site growth.

How will page views impact my rate card? The total number of page views will determine the struc-ture of your rate card, the available impressions and the CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions).

What are impressions? They are the number of viewed ads you can deliver on your site. Your averagepage has five ad positions, or five potential impressions per page view. Ads can run throughout the en-tire site or be targeted to a specific content section relevant to an advertiser’s desired audience.The ratio of impressions guaranteed to the total impressions available determines the advertisers’“Share of Voice” or the value of the impressions.Sections or sites with fewer impressions can offer a higher “Share of Voice” ratio with fewer page viewsand receive a higher CPM.Higher trafficked sections or sites will need to deliver more impressions to achieve significant “Share ofVoice” and generally offer a lower CPM.

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•RATE CARD

What should we consider when setting up a rate card? There are three things to focus on: localmarket and competition, share of voice and resources on the local level.

Here are some general guidelines:

Small sites (100,000 page views per month) | Are not guaranteed impressions, but the ad posi-tions available are based on a $35 CPM and divide out the average impressions. Price points for pack-ages range from $100 to $300. Some of the small sites are creating bundles with print to build thecomfort level of the local sales reps.

Midsize sites (100,000 to 1 million page views per month) | Are guaranteed impressions (over de-liver by 25 percent) and targeted by sections. Premium positions and targeted sections are generally$35 CPM. In markets with stronger competition, they are including additional features (SEO, IYP, etc.)instead of lowering CPM. Price points range from $100 to $750.

Larger markets (1 million page views and more per month) | The CPMs are lower because of thevolume necessary to provide a significant Share of Voice. CPMs range from $8 to $20 (depending onmarkets). Price points range from $150 to $1,500.

Should there be customization to the rate cards? The pricing and CPM are more of a guide to helplocations capitalize on their extended reach.

Who can help us with our online rate card? Additional training and promotional materials for totalaudience and the value of the combined print and online reach are available. Contact your regional co-ordinator for more information.

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4. NEWSROOM ANALYSIS

What information should we share with our newsrooms? Editors should study Google Analyticsweekly and prepare a monthly report to share with the staff. The report should at least include month-over-month page views and unique visitors, plus some notes on the content that is most popular andthe content that is not. This will help you focus your resources.

• Including a Top 10 list of stories for the month will help hone your Web strategy and could be a funway to motivate your newsroom to focus more on traffic-driving content.

• You can pluck specific numbers from Google Analytics Overview sections, or you can build and savecustom reports to automatically generate data to share.

• Google offers a “Quick Start Guide for Custom Reporting” here:http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98527You can export your custom report into Excel or set up your own report.

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What trends should we expect to see as weimplement Web Cube? We believe that whenyou begin to post consistent updates throughoutthe day and publish regular photo galleries andpolls to your homepage, you will see trafficgrowth of at least 25 percent within six months.

What then? Will traffic level off? After six months, refining your Web strategy to publish the specificcontent visitors want will help maintain steady growth. Growth will vary depending on how much yournewsroom has been focused on the Web prior to Web Cube and your market’s potential.

Those newsrooms fully up to speed with consistent posts, photo galleries and polls can continue to drivegrowth with video, social networking (Facebook and Twitter) and building on reader involvement through fea-tures such as interactive maps.

When are the best times of the day to post fresh content? Analysis shows that key Web traffic ishighest between 8 and 9 a.m., again around noon and then between 5 and 6 p.m.

You can study the hourly habits of your visitors in Google Analytics under: Visitors: “Visitor Trending:Visits” and selecting a date range. Then click the Clock icon in the upper right to see an hourly break-down. Publish fresh content during those times when visitors are most likely to be checking in. Doing sowill build reader expectations and, ultimately, traffic.

5. NEWSROOM RESOURCES

What other analysis can I use for our strategy? Google Insights for Search can tell you what Webusers in your city or region are searching for in Google within selected time ranges. Study the resultsand see if there is any way you can offer logical local content to satisfy those searches.

For example, “Swine Flu” was a popular news search in many regions in the past 90 days. Were therenews stories and hospital-related press releases you could have offered during that news period to sat-isfy the demand?

Here’s a link to Insights:http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

Also consider:http://www.google.com/trends for real time searches terms.New vs. returning data in the “Visitors section” is also helpful. If you are drawing new visitors, yourtraffic-driving efforts are paying off. Engaging new visitors with a steady flow of content will turn theminto returning visitors.Average page views in the “Visitors section” under “Visitor Trending” can show you how engaged visi-tors are once they land on your site. Are they looking at one page and moving on, or is there other con-tent to generate several page views for each visit?Content by Title analytics can tell you how specific sections of your Web site are performing. Will regu-lar scores and updates drive more traffic to Sports? Will recipe callouts or restaurant photo galleriesdrive more traffic to Food?Searching for specific stories in Google Analytics and how they performed online can also help edu-cate you and the newsroom about what plays well with your Web audience.

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6. GLOSSARY TERMS

Here are some terms to know that will help you navigate and use Google Analytics:

Average page views: The average number of pages viewed per visit. A high average page views num-ber suggests that visitors interact extensively with your site.

Bounce rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person leftyour site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of relevance and quality of content to youraudience.

CPM: CPM cost per 1,000 impressions. Ad campaigns are priced and sold based on the number oftimes the ad will be delivered. Package prices can be customized by setting a standard price for num-ber of ads delivered in units of 1,000 and adjusting impressions guaranteed based on advertiser budgetor goals.

Depth of visit (visitor behavior): A large number of high page views per visit suggests easy navigationand relevant content to your visitors.

Length of visit (visitor behavior): A large number of lengthy visits suggests that visitors interactmore extensively with your site.

Loyalty (visitor behavior): Loyal visitors are frequently highly engaged with your brand, and a highnumber of multiple visits indicate good customer/visitor retention.

New vs. returning: A high number of new visitors suggests that you are successful at driving traffic toyour site, while a high number of return visitors suggests that the site content is engaging enough tokeep visitors coming back.

New visitor: Google Analytics records a visitor as “new’” when any page on your site has been ac-cessed for the first time by a Web browser.

Page view: An instance of a page being loaded by a browser. Google Analytics logs a page view eachtime the tracking code is executed.

Returning visitor: Google Analytics records a visitor as “returning” when the cookie for your domainexists on the browser accessing your site.

Time on site: Time on site is one way of measuring visit quality. If visitors spend a long time visitingyour site, they may be interacting extensively with it.

Unique visitors (or absolute unique visitors): Represents the number of unduplicated (counted onlyonce) visitors to your Web site over the course of a specified time period. Our standard time period formeasure is daily unique visitors. This provides easier comparison to print circulation as well as settingrealistic expectations for advertisers regarding your reach.

Visit or session: The number of visits your site receives is the most basic measure of how effectivelyyou promote your site.

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Documents

2010 GateHouse Media Newsroom Handbook