FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK | What do we publish at TC Daily Planet?
Olga Rut'ko - Fotolia.com
Is the Daily Planet part of the news media or part of the blogosphere? Where do our articles come from? Are they edited? What's the difference between blog posts and articles? How do we distinguish between reporting and opinion? Here's the inside story.
In our news columns, we republish news from our community media partners and we publish original TC Daily Planet stories. We also publish a third category of stories in the Free Speech Zone. Here's what we do with each category:
1) Community media partners - We do not fact check or re-edit articles from our community media partners. If a byline reads, "by Charles Hallman, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder," it was written for, edited by and originally published by the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, one of our community media partners. Our media partners edit and stand behind their own stories.
2) TC Daily Planet original stories - We edit and fact check original stories published under the TC Daily Planet byline. If a story's byline reads, "by Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet," then that's our story, written for the Daily Planet. We edit and fact-check our Daily Planet original stories.
We have guidelines for writers, which we send to them when they first inquire about writing for us, and we require them to furnish documentation with each story that they write.
3) We encourage reader contributions in a number of ways, and are working to make the website even more accessible for direct contributions. If an article submitted by a reader looks like something we would want to publish under our byline AND if we have time to edit it, we might publish it as "Special to the TC Daily Planet." That might involve dialogue with the writer about sources, fact-checking, etc.
Most reader-submitted content ends up in our Free Speech Zone. These are submitted to us by readers, but not edited by the Daily Planet. We offer the Free Speech Zone as a free space for reader submissions, whether or not they meet journalistic standards. Some of these may be substantial news stories, but we just do not have the time to edit everything, and our byline goes only on edited stories. Each Free Speech Zone article is identified in the title, e.g., FREE SPEECH ZONE | LS Power natural gas power plant scheme going down in Chisago County, and carries this explanation in a sidebar:
FREE SPEECH ZONE
The Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases.
Some articles do not make it into the Free Speech Zone. We don't publish advertising or press releases or spam. We don't publish personal attacks, hate speech, or writing that is possibly libelous or just plain crazy. (Those standards apply to our comment section, too.) Please note: MOST articles and MOST comments do get published.
We also focus on Minnesota content, which means that writers from New York or Los Angeles who send us their columns will be disappointed.
Blogs, opinions and reporting
We publish blogs and opinion articles as well as reported articles. If an article is more opinion than reporting (and that's a judgment call), it may be published with an "OPINION" tag in the headline: for example, OPINION | Men need to weigh in on rape.
We have some blog partners, who have agreed to allow us to republish some of their posts. We also have a structure that allows any registered user to maintain a blog. From all of the blog posts published every day, we select some to feature on the front page. In the very near future, we will have an updated blog page that will list the most recently published blogs, whether or not they are feaured on the front page.
Finally, sometimes our writers have connections to stories and opinions about the news they cover. We do not disqualify them for that reason, but we do ask for transparency. We publish "Full disclosure" statements, identifying that relationship. Our guidelines tell writers:
We care about fairness and transparency. Personal perspective is good-but please identify your relationship with the story. For example: if you are writing a restaurant review, and the restaurant is owned by your cousin, say so. If you worked on Representative X's campaign in the past, disclose that.
Want to write for us?
Anyone can submit articles and blogs - just register as a user (blue box, column 1) and then click on "write an article" or "post a blog entry." If you'd like more participation, come to our classes or to our Monday writers' groups.
The Twin Cities Daily Planet is an edited news source produced by professional journalists working in collaboration with citizen journalists from the local community. We publish original reported news articles, articles republished from media partners, and some content (Free Speech Zone articles, reader-submitted blog entries, comments) that is moderated but not edited. Click here for a complete description of our editorial policies. Support people-powered non-profit journalism! Volunteer, contribute news, or become a member to keep the Daily Planet in orbit. |
Mary Turck is the editor of the TC Daily Planet.
We're people-powered journalism! Click on story links (below) to see more story information, and then email editor@tcdailyplanet.net if you want to report.
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Comments
questions and answers.....
This is helpful. You're describing a complicated matrix.
I posted a couple of items that clearly were opinion pieces, and a couple that maybe were on the boundary between reporting and opinionizing. How to categorize them in your system? It wasn't obvious to me.
What is, in the view of the Daily Planet, the difference between an "article" and a "blog post?"
How did the Planet choose it's "media partners" (those whose content is allowed to appear on the Planet page?) Does this mean those sources are generally considered by you to be credible, or is it a business matter, or.....?
In the spinning world of journalism in 2009, much that seemed obvious in the past, or at least generally accepted, no longer is.
am
Choices
I can briefly reply; Mary may choose to add to my comments.
What is, in the view of the Daily Planet, the difference between an "article" and a "blog post"?
A blog post is one in a series of pieces that are connected by an author or a theme. The biggest difference between an article and a blog post is that an article is written to stand alone; a blog post is written under the assumption that the reader has been following or can easily access related blog posts. This assumption means that blog posts can include elements of both fact and opinion—though Daily Planet blog entries should not include any falsehoods, which are different than statements of opinion because unlike statements of opinion they are demonstrably untrue—and are typically shorter than articles. Our blog entries are clearly labeled as such, and include links to related blog entries.
How did the Planet choose its "media partners" (those whose content is allowed to appear on the Planet page?) Does this mean those sources are generally considered by you to be credible, or is it a business matter, or.....?
There are two, related, questions here: (1) How do we choose our media partners? and (2) How do we choose what content to republish in the Daily Planet?
To answer #1: Yes, we generally consider our media partners' content to be credible and useful, and we consider it a service both to our readers and to our partners to share their content. Since media partnership is by mutual agreement, a media partner must agree that having their content republished in the Daily Planet is in the interest of the publication and the community. We strive to choose media partners whose content is high-quality and of interest to our readers. (It's worth noting that media partners have a reciprocal right to republish, with attribution but without charge, our original content.) We'd like to have as many media partners as reasonably possible; our limitations are (a) the existence of appropriate partners; (b) their agreement to partner with us; and (c) our time. That brings me to...
Answer #2. We republish only a small fraction of the available content in our media partners. This is mostly due to our own time limitations, but it also means that we select the content most likely to be of interest to our readers; if an article or blog entry from a partner particularly piques your interest, we hope you visit their site or pick up their print edition to see what else they have to offer!
Thanks for the
Thanks for the reply.
Practically: If I want to submit something to the "Free Speech Zone," how do I do it? The "write an article" box on the left doesn't have an option for that. It has options for "News Story, "Newsletter," "Letter to the Editor," "Discussion Topic," and "A/V file." I'm not sure how these categories fit into the patterns of the Planet. If I submit an op-ed as a "news story," for lack of an alternative, it may give the impression I don't know the difference (I don't, always!).
Maybe a few paragraphs of "FAQ" or users manual for the site could clarify how to interact with it. Or maybe I'm just unusually dense.
In any case, the Planet is a fine thing.
am
You can find the Free Speech
You can find the Free Speech Zone designation in the Section box - but you don't need to worry about it. When we moderate articles, we add the Free Speech Zone tag and description.
And your suggestion about a short how-to page is right on target. We have just upgraded the site architecture, and now that all of the new features are functional, we are working on a brief set of instructions for submitting articles and blogs.
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