The Lansing Star Online is a Web-only newspaper.  If you are thinking of submitting an article to the Lansing Star please take a moment to review these brief guidelines (below). 

We DO accept articles and columns from volunteer writers, and press releases that are written in news story form (see brief guidelines below).  We prefer local stories or stories about people from the Lansing or Ithaca area.  We also want business and entertainment stories from all of Tompkins County, NY.

What We Accept

The Lansing Star's beat is Lansing, NY including the Town and Village of Lansing.  But we also cover Ithaca and Tompkins County, especially in our Business, Around Town, and Entertainment sections.  Please keep this in mind when submitting items to us. We will rarely feature an item as a story if it is not about local people, places, and organizations, or Tompkins County businesses, theaters, galleries, etc.  If you think we are in Michigan, please don't submit!

We DO NOT accept announcements of events as stories. 
Please do not confuse news stories with announcements. We will not run announcements on our content pages (unless they are paid announcements -- see below).  However, if you are planning an event we do accept stories about it if written according to our guidelines. We prefer to cover events when they take place, but if there is a news-worthy story about the preparation of an event we may consider running it.  For instance you might send a piece on the creation of floats for a parade, or some other angle that would be interesting to readers.

We have reasonable advertising rates.  Click here for information.

STYLE GUIDELINES:

For All Stories

See the other pages on this site for news article and press release writing hints.

General:

• Stories must be a minimum of three or four short paragraphs.
• Maximum size equals about two pages in Word, or about 20 short paragraphs.  *
  
• All stories have a small square picture at the top.  If possible send one that can be sized by us.
• Pictures: We do prefer to run pictures with stories.  If possible please send a few.  DO NOT send pictures in a Word file -- DO send them as separate attachments to your email.  DO send captions at the bottom of your article, either in a Word file or in your email.  Do NOT send us a link to a gallery, and do NOT send more than three pictures without prior permission.  We will edit pictures for size. **
  

*  As online publications we do not have the space limitations print newspapers have.  However, if a story is too long and/or if paragraphs are too long people will lose interest.  Remember, start each story with a strong lead paragraph, and answer who, what, where, when, and how.  Don't put in 'too much information.'

** You must be the photographer or copyright owner of pictures you send for publication.  We accept pictures in JPG, GIF, and PNG format.  We do not download pictures from links you send us.


News Stories

• Tell about local people, places, organizations or events
• Make the first paragraph the most interesting to draw readers to read the rest
• Tell who, what, where, when, why and how
• Readers love facts and figures and statistics.
• Include a picture or two if you can
• Avoid hype (don't use exclamation points!!!) and advertising language
• When referring to people use their full name the first time, and then only use their last name.  Exceptions: use first names for children below teenage, and use first names if your story has two people that share a last name
  
• Include quotations if you can.  Quotes give your story a face and lend credence to what you are reporting on.
  
• When using quotation marks ONLY use double quotes ( " ) for actual quotations from people you are writing about.  Use single quotes ( ' ) for everything else, including quotations within quotations.  Examples:  Johnson said roller derby has the 'cool' factor.  "I love when they come around the curves," he said.  "When they do people say 'Woah!' and start screaming."
• Do not merely announce an event
• Do not ask for a response from readers in a news story
  
• Do not "speak" to people you are reporting on. For example do not thank people or offer congratulations.  Don't tell them to come to an event.
  
• Write in the third person. DO: "The team clobbered the competition." DON'T: "We killed them in the 9th inning."
• Don't use ALL CAPS in any words except acronyms (like TCCOG).  And when using acronyms spell out the full title with the acronym after it in parentheses.  Example: 'Board of Education (BOE)'
  
• Spell out numbers below 10 like one or seven.  Otherwise use numbers: 23, not 'twenty-three'.

For Sports Stories

• Say which sport it is
• Always include the game score and the season score.
• Spell out numbers below 10 (except in scores).  Otherwise use numbers 23, not 'twenty-three'.
• Use full words, not abbreviations.  Don't use @ for at
• Don't ask the reader for something, and don't congratulate the team (DO: 'The next game is at home on June 29th'  DON'T: "Come support the team on June 29th'

If a press release is submitted in the form of a news story (see above) we will consider it for publication.

We are a small newspaper trying to survive by selling ads to provide quality local news to our readers, and 'gimmes' -- announcements of events or programs that ask for a reader response -- compete with our ad sales, therefore we are unable to publish these releases.

We do offer our free events calendar and a very reasonable paid announcement option for non-profits (see below).

Announcements by non-profits and municipalities can be placed in content areas (where news stories are) for $10 a week. Examples are job openings, municipal or public meetings, or items for sale. These are clearly labeled as "paid."

Paid announcements should be two paragraphs or less.  Text only, no pictures.

Enter your events at IthaCalendar.com.  This same calendar is the one used in the Star, as well as Wikatha.com, so entering it once will make your event show up in all these places.

• Tell about upcoming events
• Include a date, time and place
• May announce times, places, ticket prices, etc. within reason
• Must be local, in or near Tompkins County

Note: Please enter calendar events yourself. Once entered there will be a delay until a moderator can approve the listing to go live, usually within a day or two.

Entering your events in this way gets them seen.  This is a free, moderated service.  You must enter your own events. We do not have staff to enter events for you -- no exceptions.