Behind the Scenes: Clearing up the mystery of placement

You may have noticed that we have some general themes with content that appears inside each edition of the newspaper. Some of these themes — letters to the editor, obituaries and sports, for example — are on the same pages each week. We do this on purpose because we want to make them easy to find. What are your neighbors saying this week? You’ll find out on A4, Your Voice. You heard an acquaintance has passed away and are looking for their obituary — which always start on A7. You noticed a photographer at your student’s sports event and are looking for the writeup — sports begin on A10.

Because these are themed pages, content must fit a certain criteria to be placed on that page — which is why you won’t find a news story on the opinion page. (You will, however, find news stories on A5, which is sometimes used as jump space for letters to the editor and additional commentaries — we make the distinction by placing a “News” banner between any letters and such a story.) I could get longwinded about why we place certain news items on some pages and not on others, but the short answer is that items are more likely to be read when they’re grouped into similar categories. Would you look for a community meeting notice in sports?

Me neither.

All right, moving on to letters to the editor. Periodically, we will get a letter that goes much longer than the 350 maximum word count we have established. (Okay, fine, if it’s 352, yes, we can probably make it work.) We are sticklers on this maximum count because 1) We cover five counties in the Gorge and can receive many submissions each week, 2) We strive to include as many letters as possible in each edition and 3) Shorter letters are better read. And I probably need to add 4) If we open that door for one reader, then we have to for everyone — and we simply do not have the space.

(Also, we are not accepting longer commentary submissions at this time; please keep to the 350 word limit.)

Press release submissions are generally in the 350-700 word range. Sometimes they’re shorter. Sometimes they’re longer — and in this case, longer is okay. Be aware, however, that if your release is on the long side, we may need to cut it to fit, meaning that if we have 6 inches of space and your release is 8 inches, then 2 inches need to come out somewhere. In general, I advise to make sure all of the important information is up top so if we do need to trim, there’s less chance of important details being left off.

Sometimes we get a commentary that is submitted as a news release. The distinction here comes down to how it is written — a news release emphasizes fact, and a commentary highlights an opinion. Commentaries can be about news items, of course — such as why you think everyone needs to show up for a community meeting. But a news release would simply state the facts: The meeting is on this date and this time, at this location, and this person is expected to speak. Compare that to a commentary, where the intent is to convince you to go to said meeting and is written in first-person.

If that’s the case, you’re better off writing a letter to the editor. Yes, even if you are a member of a club or group.

Also, I need to say this again because it keeps coming up: Press releases run as space allows. We know your release is important. We will do our best to get it in sooner rather than later. But we cannot promise a run date. Pages are always in flux until we send them to press, which means that we might get a late ad or breaking news that throws off everything that’s been laid out up until that point. My own stories get held (including this column, which was slated for last week), so I understand the disappointment. That’s simply how it goes when you’re working with a finite space, such as a newspaper.

I’ve chosen to answer these particular questions because they’re the ones that come up the most. If you have another question that isn’t addressed here, feel free to send an email my way (trishaw@gorgenews.com). Trust me, I love to talk about this stuff!