Cape Cod Chronicle
Community News Guidelines

September 2003

 Our goal at The Chronicle is to provide the most complete coverage of Chatham and Harwich as possible.  We try to publish as many news items and announcements about local events and people as space allows.  By following these guidelines, you will make it easier for us to process your news item and increase the chance that it will be published.

What is community news?

Community news items are news releases about events or accomplishments, such as theater productions, fund-raisers, lectures, meetings, awards and other announcements of interest to the community at large.  We recognize the importance of publishing these items as a service to the people in our towns; along with the news generated by our staff, community news is the sort of information that only a small-town newspaper such as The Chronicle can provide. 

Please understand that The Chronicle covers the communities of Chatham and Harwich; news from our towns receive priority.  Because of space limitation, we often can=t publish every news release we receive in just those two towns.  We will consider publication of items from Orleans, Brewster and other towns, if the items are of interest to residents in Chatham and Harwich.  However, they will receive low priority.

There are several types of community news.  Items about events are usually run the issue closest to the event.  When advance ticket sales are important, items can be run a few weeks ahead of time. We generally only run items once, unless there is a compelling reason to run them more often.  Functions that benefit non-profit organizations receive priority.

Student news, engagement and wedding announcements are grouped together and run periodically, as space allows.  Obituaries have a separate page each week. Entertainment listings run in the Entertainment Sampler, and should be sent to the attention of that department.  Regular meetings, lectures, classes, and church news are published in the Almanac section and should be sent to that department.

 In what format should releases be submitted?

Community news should be submitted to us as via email or computer disk, or as typewritten copy.  We prefer emailed items to be pasted into the body of the message rather than sent as an attachment.  If you must attach your news release, please submit it as Word document in Windows format.  Items written on a Mac should be converted before being sent.  Please do not submit hand-written copy; this increases the chance for errors and makes it more difficult for us to publish your item in a timely manner.

News releases should be written in paragraph form, following a Awho, what, when and where@ format.  Study the news items published in The Chronicle as a guide.  Be sure to include the event, date, time, place, admission cost and beneficiary, if any.  Also include a contact name and telephone number.  Stick to the facts and keep it short, no more than two or three paragraphs.  Avoid superlatives such, since they will be edited out anyway, and don=t Awe@ or Aus@ in the copy.   The cleaner your copy reads, the easier it is for us to process and publish it.

Posters, flyers or news submitted as a listing will receive a low priority, since a staff member has to spend time rewriting them. Almanac and entertainment items should be submitted as one or two sentence listings and do not need to be in paragraph form.