The NewsBreak Town Hall Meeting

NewsBreak held a Town Hall Meeting to update contributors on polices and editorial standards as well as to introduce new features

Last night, NewsBreak held a Town Hall Meeting to discuss changes to the platform, review policies and editorial standards, discuss new features and answer questions. While I felt that there was still a lot of vagueness in the presentation which is one of my primary criticisms of the platform, there were some helpful answers that others creating content for the site might be also be interested in. This article isn’t intended to cover everything that was said during the 40-minute virtual meeting, just some of the things that caught my attention.

New Groupings for Contributors

The first thing that interested me was the new designations for creators now called contributors. There will be three designations, Journalists, Area Experts and Community Voices. They said they have been reviewing accounts to see how best to determine these categories and will have more information in the coming months. They added that if you feel you belong in a certain category to email them and let them know and they will consider it.

A question I had that wasn’t answered was in regards to publishing articles as an expert. While I have a Ph.D. and have run a graduate program, when I attempt to publish psychology related articles they are often not accepted or at best assigned a RPM of .08 or even lower, so they earn next to nothing.

I have focused on hyper local content as that is what they have stated they want. This means when they go through my account they won’t see much expert topical articles as to this point it has largely been a waste of time for me to publish them. So, I will likely be in the category of community voices which I believe receives the lowest level of compensation. They said this is the category the majority of contributors will fall into. I’m not sure if anyone is still receiving base pay — another question which went unanswered, but I imagine if they are they would be in the Journalist group of writers.

These categories were also mentioned in terms of monetization going forward. However, at the same time, they said if you’re already monetized, you’d likely keep the same monetization terms you have now. I asked if you were assigned to a group with lower compensation if there was a way to move up to a different group but this was another unanswered question.

Another creator asked if you could be an area expert and also write local content, and they replied that they want contributors to remain in a niche and feel it will confuse readers for a contributor to create two types of content. This was the same for video content so if you are an area expert for written content, and want to produce video content as well, it should be in the same area as opposed to local news for example.

What Makes for Good Content

Something that I found to be useful that was discussed was the topic of what components contribute to high quality content. For written stories, the key points mentioned were:

Story Selection

• Choose a story that is relevant, has community impact and is an engaging topic

Format

• Break up text with subheads
• Make sure it is objective
• Keep it under 500 words

Headlines

• Titles should be to the point and engaging

Image

• Images should be clear and include faces

There were a couple of things here that caught my attention. First, was the word count. When we received base pay, part of the requirements was that stories be at least 650 words long.

Now, the message is shorter is better, primarily since most users read on mobile devices. It actually sounded like they now frown on long pieces, though said if you want to write one once in a while, that would probably be okay. This will be helpful moving forward since I tend to write longer pieces and will be limiting word count from now on.

They said with regards to the objectivity criteria, that you need to present all sides of the story not just one. However, they added that you can publish opinion pieces, but they have to be clearly identified as such both in the title and the text. The title must follow the format, “Opinion: xyz.”

Regarding titles however, I had a bit of an issue with what was said. I had numerous pieces rejected because they had numbers in the title, which they defined as a listicle. The articles were definitely not listicles as each entry included an extensive discussion with identifying information.

Titles such as “5 Great Rooftop Bars in Chicago That Provide COVID Protection Measures”, “7 Chicago Restaurants Where You Can Eat with a View of Lake Michigan,” “6 Places in Chicago Where You Can Watch July 4th Fireworks,” and “7 Family Friendly Parks in Chicago Where you Can Take Children of All Ages,” were all rejected.

I wrote in saying that it’s been recognized for quite some time now that one thing search engines look for is a number in the title. By changing “5 Great Rooftop Bars in Chicago That Provide COVID Protection Measures” (which I stated in the article I’d confirmed by speaking with each manager), to “Rooftop Bars in Chicago”, besides not describing the focus of the article also tanked my headline SEO. I ended up publishing all of these articles elsewhere.

However, the examples of titles they gave last night were, “The Top 3 Thrift Stores in Portland,” and “5 Must See Places in Michigan.” I would have thought both of these would constitute clickbait. I’m sure there are different opinions as to what the top thrift stores in Portland are, or whether the places listed in the second articles were considered by everyone to be somewhere they must see. Then there was obviously the number issue, which they are evidentially now not only accepting but consider desirable.

I was also curious about the recommendation that we choose pictures with faces as I’ve never heard this from them before and don’t remember seeing it anywhere in the content guidelines. I’m usually careful about this since if you’re using stock images, you can’t always be 100 percent certain that permission was granted by those in the photo, and when taking your own photos not everyone is aware that you need to obtain permission before taking the photo as well as from everyone in the photo in order to publish it.

For video content they also mentioned that the story should be relevant, engaging and have community impact. Regarding format they said it should be under 5 minutes long, portray a unique inside look at the story and be immersive.

A quick word about becoming a video contributor. I ran into a problem with this over the summer. They invited me to become a video creator but despite submitting a number of original videos that resembled ones they’d published, none were accepted as part of my application.

Eventually, I was just wasting too much time and energy on this and gave up. Tonight, they made it clear that their video network is a closed system, meaning you have to be invited to apply and your application is evaluated based on your current collection of videos published on Youtube or elsewhere. They only want video creators who already have a large body of work and a lot of followers.

The Difference Between Publishers and Creators

I asked about the differences between “Publishers” and “Contributors.” This question came about over the summer when I was attempting to get accepted as a video creator. I had already had a number of sample videos rejected because I wasn’t on camera, was on camera too much or not enough, or for a number of other reasons.

At one point, they provided examples of the types of videos they were looking for. Everyone broke the rules they said we were required to follow. One was portrait oriented, all but one didn’t have the creator on camera, one was just a quick video of a cute bear cub someone saw which was adorable but had no narrative at all, and one was an example of road rage with the creator chasing and cutting off a car while cussing the person out. He wasn’t on camera but made sure to get his victim on camera.

I couldn’t understand why such videos were accepted and mine which were edited and followed their rules were rejected one after the other. The answer that I received was that the others were created by publishers. I had no idea why that would make a difference. Either there were rules for the site or there weren’t

Last night, they explained that while they have the same guidelines for publishers, these creators are only required to follow the rules of the organization they work for. So, while in some cases it appears that “publishers” are individual entities with a blog or regular column or the like, they are required to be employed by journalistic sites.

I don’t know how closely this is monitored as when I began with NB I didn’t know the difference and originally applied and was accepted as a publisher. My first articles were published on a publisher account. I imagine if I hadn’t said anything upon learning the difference, I likely could have kept the publisher account.

Three Strikes System

Several others attending the meeting raised the issue of the three strikes system. They said that you can appeal a strike but if it is rejected there will be no feedback as to why. They did mention something important about this, however.

If you receive a strike because of a particular article, and try to appeal it, you should not delete the story in question. If you do so, you cannot appeal and the strike becomes permanent.

New Features Coming Soon

At the end of the meeting, they mentioned that there are some new features for contributors that will be coming in the next few months. One was a new system that will provide more options for comments such as closing them, limiting them to followers and better ways to monitor them all in one place like the contributor portal. Given how negative so many comments are, this seems like a great area to focus on.

Another feature NB will be rolling out soon is new badges. They said they’ll keep the ones they have now like top contributor and local expert and there also will be new ones added in the coming months.

Finally, the new feature I like the best is the creation of a new community space. This is intended to be a hub where contributors can connect with each other as well as with staff members. Since there is no messaging system this will be a fabulous addition. I love the idea of really creating a community space within the platform instead of on Facebook and the ability to link up with fellow contributors and staff alike. Kudos, NewsBreak, for this one!

Did you attend the NewsBreak Townhall Meeting? If so what caught your attention or was something new that you learned? What questions did you have that were or weren’t answered?

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