Write For Press

The Lansing Star Online and the Ithaca Star Online are Web-only newspapers.  If you are thinking of submitting an article to the Lansing Star please take a moment to review these brief guidelines. 

We do accept articles and columns from volunteer writers, and press releases that are written as a news story.  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.

We do not accept announcements of events as stories.

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 and Entertainment sections.  Please keep this in mind when submitting items to us. The Ithaca Star's beat is Ithaca, 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.

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 that have already occurred, but if there is a news-worthy story about the preparation of an event we may consider running it.

We have reasonable advertising rates.  Click here for information.

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.

*  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.'


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
• 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 quotes if you can
• 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
• Do not "speak" to people you are reporting on. For example do not thank people or offer congratulations.
• 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.  Otherwise use numbers 23, not 'twenty-three'.

For Sports Stories

• 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'

Press Releases and Announcements

If a press release is submitted in the form of a news story (see guidelines to the left) 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 (below) and a very reasonable paid announcement option for non-profits (see below).

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Calendar Events (Free)

• 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.  This is a free, moderated service.  Once entered there will be a delay until a moderator can approve the listing to go live, usually within 24 hours.

Entering your events in this way gets them seen.  We do not enter calendar events for you.


Paid Announcements

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."