[Seattle-editorial] re: N30 - Feature on Seattle IMC?

[Jason Reep]

the answer is yes...but...

as you mentioed we are understaffed.  Our nominal method of feature 
creation is to assemble articles that have been posted to the newswire 
into a coherent feature.  Sometimes this consists of many articels and 
images (sometimes audio) and sometimes it's just one substantive article 
combined with offsite info.  I haven't done a comprehensive survey today 
but it seems that the bulk of postins so far about N30 are about whether 
or not to confront the police.  Is this the story we want to feature?

Brady do you have or know of any locally written articles, schedules, 
flyers, events, critique, etc.. that can be posted? 
I know that you are probably as busy as the rest of us but, the quickest 
and most participatory way to get a feature up would be to help us write it.

Here it the feature format guildlines page (relevant section begins 
about a quarter in):
http://seattle.indymedia.org/editorial-intro.php3

in sol, Jason

quoted here:

*Feature Articles *
The center column feature articles on the Seattle IMC site are usually 
composed by members of the editorial collective, and are based on 
articles that have already been posted to the newswire. When we see an 
article on the newswire that is high quality, we create a feature for 
the center column with links to the article so that it gets longer-term, 
centrally visible exposure. However, because of the volume of articles 
posted to the newswire, the editorial collective is unable to read every 
article, looking for feature quality material. As a reflection of our 
open newswire policy, the editorial collective encourages anyone to 
submit feature proposals to the collective.

Featured articles can relate to local or international issues, should be 
well written, and ideally cover issues involving under-represented 
voices in the mainstream media. It is possible to submit one article as 
a feature, but a proposal that includes numerous articles showing 
various facets of the issue, or a balance of viewpoints, is more likely 
to be accepted. Before submitting a feature proposal to the editorial 
list, the URL or the web addresses of the appropriate articles should be 
gathered. This is done by locating the window at the top of your 
browser: the 'Address' in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the 
'Location' in Netscape's Navigator, starting with http://. You can 
simply cut and paste this address from the browser for your feature 
proposal.

This is a brief explanation of the format we use to propose features. 
The entire text of the proposed feature should be composed and 
circulated to the editorial list, including subtitle, title and internal 
html links to stories indicated.

It helps to know a little html, if you want to do any of the following: 
have more than one paragraph in your feature, have internal links in the 
body of the feature, have more than one picture, give the feature a byline.

For example, one recent feature, which contained internal text links and 
multiple paragraphs, would have been submitted to the list like this:

    [subtitle]INDEPEDENT MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

    [title] Gag Order Lifted; IMC in Free Speech Battle Following
    FBI/Secret Service Visit

    On Saturday, April 21, as tens of thousands demonstrated against the
    FTAA in the streets of Quebec City, the IMC in Seattle was served
    with a sealed court order
    <http://seattle.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3014> by two
    FBI agents and an agent of the US Secret Service. The terms of the
    sealed order prevented IMC volunteers from publicizing its terms.
    This morning, the gag order was lifted
    <http://seattle.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3035>,
    enabling the IMC to finally break its silence about these events,
    which Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation characterized
    as "a threat to free speech, free association, and privacy."

    Click here
    <http://seattle.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3013> for our
    definitive account of the situation.

...and so forth.

[MINI HTML TUTORIAL--DON'T BE AFRAID]

You can see the "html tags" in the text enclosed in ; these are actually 
really, really simple to learn, and the list of them needed for 
producing features is really short. Here they are, in a nutshell:

leaves a blank line and begins a new paragraph.


begins a new paragraph without leaving a blank line.

TEXT <http://seattle.indymedia.org/web%20address%20here> This is used to 
make links. You put the long instruction at the beginning, inserting the 
entire web address of the page you are linking to.. then the clickable 
text, then the <http://seattle.indymedia.org/editorial-intro.php3> to 
signal the end of the linked text.

Two more important things to remember about HTML and features:

1. In html, returns and spaces are ignored--if you want to make a new 
paragraph, you actually have to tell it

. Just inserting returns will do nothing.

2. The html tutorial is just an introductory lesson and it may seem 
overwhelming but is actually quite easy. Once you have composed your 
feature with text and appropriate links, you can send it to the 
editorial collective via email at editorial at seattle.indymedia.org Be 
sure and write FEATURE PROPOSAL in the title of the email. The 
collective will review your feature and respond appropriately (helping 
you with the html if necessary).

The editorial collective will then peruse your feature, and with a vote 
of three active editorial members, the feature will be added to the 
center column. As the editorial collective examines your article they 
may decide to add links to other articles that are similar. This is the 
beauty of working with a collective, everyone's work grows and gains 
strength



brady at riseup.net wrote:

>Not to be annoying...
>
>But, still haven't gotten word from ANY of you. Which is cool, I understand you 
>are understaffed.
>
>It would be helpful to know if it is possible to have some kind of interactive 
>feature on the Seattle IMC to make affinity group actions more prominent. 
>
>If it's just not possible (or desirable on your end), then just let me know, so 
>I can devise another plan.
>
>Thanks!
>-brady mcgarry-
>http://seattleacc.cjb.net
>http://riseup.net/n30
>
>_______________________________________________
>Seattle-editorial mailing list
>Seattle-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/seattle-editorial
>  
>
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