Guidelines For Posting To WATM
What is We Are The Media? We bring you the news in the vlogosphere.
This is a list of general guidelines for being a reporter on We Are The Media. By writing about vlogs, you position yourself as an expert. As a reporter who reports regularly, you get a sidebar link to your blog. Every post you make has your name at the bottom that links back to your blog.
Please add our banner to your own website. Together we are stronger
than one!
Title: Make an interesting title.
First Sentence: The first sentence should grab the attention of the reader, be descriptive, and make them want to read on.
The story: Post your news story. If possible share your own perspective. Make it personal. Make it a story. Make it entertaining. Blogs are informal and readers don’t want to be bored by the text.
We have two audiences: one group is videobloggers and the other group is people who are interested in videoblogging. Let’s keep our posts relevant to these audiences. The subject matter of most posts should be video-blogging-related. If the post is not so clearly linked to video blogging, try to write how this is relevant to video bloggers (ie. review of a video camera: how it may be an affordable choice for beginners).
My students will find this in September, so please keep the language and content kid-appropriate. If you feel it necessary to link to something with bad language, please warn people so they know what to expect. This will keep me out of trouble with my students’ parents. A warning could look like this: Warning, this video contains explicit language.
Ideally post at least once a week. If you need ideas about what to post about, send out an email. For me it goes in waves, some days I have like 10 ideas, other days I’m like “What do I post about?” If we can share ideas, we’ll be better off.
As a beginning contributor, please save your posts as drafts and send a note off to the group. An editor will check your post and may make changes in order to make you look good and have your posts stylistically hang together.
Don’t post negative reviews or defaming content. We only link to what we like. This ensures a positive experience for the viewer and keeps us out of trouble. We’ve all seen what can happen if you don’t play nice in the vlogosphere. We must play nice. Any negative posts will be removed from the site and either deleted or resaved as a draft to be edited. Note: controversy can be ok, use your discretion, you’re responsible for your posts.
If you see a problem in someone’s post, contact the reporter who wrote the article right away to get it fixed. If they are not available, contact Bre, Josh, or Steve so that the change can be made asap. If I significantly change your post before talking to you, I’ll send you an email or leave you a voicemail describing the changes made. My goal as the editor of this project is to make you look good.
Leave comments on other reporters articles. We want to support each other. Don’t leave critisism in comments, if there is a problem email them or even better, call them.
Spread the link love, but do it consciously, considerately, and with respect.
Always point to your source. This will keep you from getting sued. Use the following form separated by a single linebreak at the bottom: via [sourcelink]
If you are reviewing a vlog, then you don’t need a via source link because you are the generating source.
Don’t link multiple hotlinks to the same page. We want to point people
to content, not confuse them. Keep linking simple. It’s ok to have the photo link to the same place as the main link, but let’s not go link crazy. If a person has a blog, make their name a link. If your blog is the origional source, feel free to make the source link your blog.
If you are cross posting a long blog post from your blog, create a [more] link to the permalink on your blog like Markus does with his videoblog conference posts.
I’m sure there are more guidelines to links, let me know if you figure something else out.
Reporters: This is the most important job on the project. Reporters write interesting and relevant posts. By doing this they keep the world updated on the latest news in vlogs, point people to interesting videoblogging content, and pave the way for the grassroots media revolution. As we go deeper into the world of vlog journalism, I predict that different reporters will find different areas of vlog reporting that they specialize in.
