Strategy for a La Honda Newspaper

There will be a meeting this Thursday at 7pm at Sullivan's  to discuss the newspaper strategy. I put together some notes below for your review:

1)   Premise: La Honda is a unique community with an eclectic mix of individuals that is in need of a periodic publication. The La Honda message board is a great source of information, but it serves a different purpose. The paper should showcase local talent and local news.

2)   The Newspaper Workforce: Volunteer contributors from the community will create the paper. Different people can be responsible for different areas on an ongoing basis. A schedule will be setup for when inputs are due.

3)   La Honda Voice Blog: Ongoing news can be blogged onto the www.lahonda.com website. Multiple authors can input into this format. Info from the blog will form the basis for the hardcopy of the newspaper. After the author uploads the information, it can be quickly promoted to become assessable by all.  There may be situations, like a periodic column, where an article is not immediately promoted. I propose that each category (see item 5 below) has a single POC that has access to the blog. Every blog entry can be commented on by readers.

4)   The Hardcopy newspaper: I don’t have the capability for printing pages greater than 8.5x14 inches at home. Perhaps there is another answer, but otherwise 8 double-sided pages of this size may be sufficient.  Newspaper frequency may be monthly, but it would be great if it was down to every 2 weeks.

5)   Categories: Different people can be in charge of different local news categories:

a.    News – as the news gets farther from La Honda, the less likely to be included

b.   Sports – LHE and Pescadero High

c.    Entertainment – including reviews of music, art and events

d.   School - News for the community

e.   Guild – News for the community

f. Calendar – Google calendar with all events (all POCs have access)

g.    Humor – April Fools edition, at least

h.   History – from Historical Society POC

i.  Literature & Poetry – From Lit Group

j. Police and Fire – There is a Sheriff’s Police Report where we can extract La Honda news

k.    Opinion – as required, include letters to the editor

l.  Obituaries – hopefully not too often, but include a bio on the deceased life, may fit under news

m. Classified/ Want Ads  – Probably web only

n.   Advertisements – hopefully enough to cover the printing costs

o.   Person of the month – Somebody in town worth interviewing

p.   Photo of the week – highlight something around town

q.   Weather – self-feeding part of online blog

r. La Honda Living – Homes, Gardens, Pets

6)   Author rules:  I will provide the rules to the authors of expected article file type, length, content, grammar, tone, image size, etc.

7)   Where from here? Ideas; populate categories; setup blog; date for first paper

-   Bob Dougherty