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ChurchNews.com

On this page we provide detailed instructions for filing a news report. God bless you!

File a News Report

Reporting news of interest to the church is a simple four step process - and like salvation, it's FREE!:

Fill out the news report form, describing time, place, and other details
Review the report to see what it will look like on our news service
Submit the report by clicking the "submit report" button
Confirm your report via E-mail (We send you an E-Mail message asking for your confirmation)

Filing a News Report: Required Information

To file a report, you will need to provide a few basic pieces of information in three categories:

News Report Contact - The person filing the report
Information Contact - A person to contact for further information
News Report Content - A description of the event/activity

To submit your report, just enter the information into the report form, and verify your report via E-Mail. A Detailed description of the information required in these three areas is given below:

News Report Contact:

The News Report Contact is the person responsible for filling out and maintaining the news report. This person MUST have a valid E-Mail account. The name and E-Mail address are not released to the public, but are kept in our records to ensure integrity. We do not use this information for "mailing lists". This individual will be given an "account name" and password for each report filed, which allows them to edit or delete the report at a later time.

First Name: Reporters first name
Last Name: Reporters last name
E-Mail Address: The reporters current E-Mail address
Password: Pick at least 6 characters, and make it hard to guess
Account Name: An account name of the form "firstname-lastname-1345" will be assigned to you

Information Contact:

An individual or organization should provide points of contact for further information (e.g., providing directions to a park or church building). This information contact can be in the form of E-Mail, Web Page, Telephone, or Regular Mail. All of this data for the Information Contact will be included in the news report, and made publicly available. The person listed under the "Name" field of the report is the one responsible for answering questions from other readers about the report. Frequently, this information contact is a receptionist, and is the person contacted for further information about the activity.

Name: Name of Information contact. This can be any name, nickname, or title (e.g., Youth Leader). Optional field.
E-Mail Address: The E-Mail address for further information. Optional field.
Web Page: The web page address for further information about the activity or organization. Optional field.
Phone: The phone number to call for further information. Optional field.
Street Address: This is the street address of the information contact, or place to send regular mail for further information. Optional field.
City: City of information contact. Optional field.
State: State of information contact. Optional field.
Zip Code: Zip code of information contact. Optional field.
Country: Country of information contact. Optional field.

News Report Content:

This is the focus of the news report. The most important part is the text description of your activity. If you are having a fund raiser, try to write your report so people want to come to your event! Other information in the main News Report Content section includes a report title (headline), sponsoring organization, location of the event, categories in which to file the report, dates, and keywords. Note that the internet users will use these fields to search for activities in there area, or at a particular time.

Categories: The area of interest to file the report
Date(s): Dates when activity is being held. You can enter date ranges in three different ways:
1. You can choose up to three specific date ranges from dropdown list boxes, for example:
  - Starting Date #1: Jun. 3, 2001
    Ending Date #1: Jun. 6, 2002
  - Starting Date #2: Jul. 14, 2002
    Ending Date #2: Jul. 18, 2003
  - Starting Date #3: Aug. 17, 2004 Ending Date #3: Aug. 23, 2007
2. You can enter a text description of the dates of interest. Note that these text based descriptions of dates are not recognized by our search engine. Following are some example date descriptions:
  - "Every Friday Night"
  - "First Tuesday of the Month".
3. You can select a weekday for periodic events. The weekday events are recognized by our search engine. This allows users to search for events on weekends (Check Fri, Sat, Sun), or any other days of the week.
Admission Fee: The price of admission to the event.
Organization: The church name or other organizational name
Denomination: Standard Denominations, Non-Denominational, or other descriptive title.
Street Address: Address where activity is being held
City: City where activity is being held
State: State where activity is being held
Area Code: Telephone area code where activity is being held
Keywords: This area is a list of words, separated by commas, that describe the activity, e.g., baseball, ice hockey, youth groups. The internet users will use keywords to find activities of interest to them, so it is best to pick short descriptive words or phrases.
Text Description: This field is the heart of the report, and should be a short descriptive news report. We limit the report to 1000 characters (about 200 words). You can use HTML tags, but be careful when you use them. We do not correct HTML errors, and if the description is not "attractive and professional looking", we will not list your report. We allow the HTML tags listed below. Using any other HTML tags will result in the deletion of your report:
- Allowed HTML tags:
  - <BR>
  - <P>
  - <B> and </B>
  - <PRE> and </PRE>
  - <HR>
  - <BLOCKQUOTE> and </BLOCKQUOTE>
  - <UL> , </UL> , and <LI>

News Report Contact: the Reporter

Information in this section is used to generate an account for the reporter (i.e. YOU, the person filling out this report). Although this is a free service, we still require an individual contact to be responsible for the news report contents. Information provided in this section is not published on our website, but is only used for registering the report, and supplying updates to the report. Only the News Report Contact may submit updates to the report.

ALL fields in this section are required.

First Name:
Last Name:
E-Mail Address:
Password (choose one):
Password (retype to confirm):

Information Contacts:

Information in this section is published as part of the news report, and should provide contacts for web surfers to get more information about the activities you are reporting. You must supply at least one source of information, such as phone, web page, postal address, or E-Mail.

You MUST supply at least one source of information. Supply either Phone, Web Page, Postal Address, or E-Mail Address.

Name:	(Optional)
Street Address:	(Optional)
City:	(Optional)
State/Province:	(Optional)
Zip Code:	(Optional)
Country:	(Optional)
E-Mail Address:	(Optional)
Web Page:	(Optional)
Phone:	(Optional)

News Report Content:

This section is used to generate your news report. It consists of three subsections, so fill out all available fields. Be sure to answer the classic news questions as best you can: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Keeping it brief and focused will attract more readers, so pray on it, and then fill out the form!

Listing Category

You may list your report in a maximum of three categories. The categories help users search for activities in a particular field of interest. If you deliberately file in categories that are not relevant (moral equivalent of spamming), then your report will be deleted without notice:

Category #1:
Category #2:
Category #3:

Date and Time of Event

If you are reporting an event or gathering, enter the date of the event below. The first three date ranges in the table are used by our search engine, which allows users to find your event based on date. The "Date: (Text)" line of the table allows you to enter text date descriptions, like "every Thursday" or "First Friday of Month". The "Date: (Text)" line is useful for periodic events, described below. To enter times, remember to enter the AM or PM.

Periodic Dates:
To record a periodic event, like "every Thursday" or "First Friday of Month", then enter a description in the "Date: (Text)" text box, and also click the day(s) of the week that the event occurs. For example, if you have an event twice a month on Wednesday's, then enter something like "twice per month on Wednesdays" in the "Date: (Text)" text box, and check the Wednesday check box. If it occurs on more than one day, check other days as necessary. Users may then search for events on a specific day by expanding their search to include periodic events. Choose a "Date Range" (described below) so that the starting and ending dates cover your regularly scheduled event.

Date Ranges:
If your event lasts several days, then you may enter date ranges (i.e., starting and stopping dates for the event). You may specify up to three date ranges which are used by the news search engine. For example, if an event runs for two weekends, from July 3, 2003 to July 5, 2003 and from July 10, 2003 to July 12, 2003 then you need to fill out two ranges of dates in the table. In this case, you would specify the following data:

Example with Two Date Ranges (two weekends):

Starting Date #1: July 3, 2003
Ending Date #1: July 5, 2003

Starting Date #2: July 10, 2003
Ending Date #2: July 12, 2003

**Starting and Ending Dates**: Church Activities and Events
Periodic Events: (This Section is for Regularly Scheduled Weekly/Monthly Events ONLY)
	Month:	Day:	Year:	Examples:
Starting Date #1:				Jul 4, 2007
Ending Date #1:				Jul 4, 2007

Starting Date #2:				Dec 25, 2007
Ending Date #2:				Dec 25, 2007

Starting Date #3:				Dec 24, 2007
Ending Date #3:				Dec 24, 2007

Date: (Text)				Every Thursday, First Friday of Month
Periodic Events: (Day of Week)	Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat			For Periodic Events ONLY

Time of Event: (Remember to Include AM/PM in the Time of Day)
Time:				8:30 PM

Admission Price

If there is an admission fee to the event you are reporting, then enter it in the field below. If it is free, just leave the word "FREE" in the admission field:

Admission Fee:	(e.g., $15.50)

Organization Information:

In this section, you should list the name of your organization, and its denomination. If possible, list the formal name of the sponsoring organization. Informal organizations are OK, but try to come up with some name for the listing. The same recommendations apply to denomination - if your organization has a well recognized denominational association, then list it. Non-denominational listing is also OK.

Organization:
Denomination:

Location:

Use this section to report the location of your event. Be sure to give the entire address, including street address, city, and state. The entire address will be needed to help people find you. The city and state fields are also used by our readers to search our archives, looking for activities in their local area (i.e., web surfers in Florida may not be interested in events in Oregon). If the event is national or global in scope (such as a national TV show) then just leave all fields blank except the state field, which should be set to "ALL".

Location Name:	(Or Building Name, Room Number, etc.)
Street Address:
City:
State:
Country:	(Optional)

Telephone Area Code Near Event Location:

To help users narrow the search, you can enter the local telephone area code near the location of the event. Users searching the news reports can use this field to find activities in their area. You can leave this field blank, but then your report can only be found by users searching all area codes. You can enter any three digit area code in the text box below.

Area Code:

Keywords for Searching:

Choose a few keywords to help users find your report. The keywords should be short but descriptive, like "Baseball" (without the quotes), or "Fund Raisers". You can list up to 3 keywords, separated by commas, e.g., "Baseball, Fund Raisers, Prayer".

Keywords:

News Report Title Line and Text:

In this section, you need to enter the actual text of your news report, along with a title line. The title line will be printed in bold, while the rest of the ad will be in plain text.

Title: Enter your title line below (60 characters max):

Summary: Enter a short summary description of your event in the text box below (30 words max):

Text: Enter the main text of your news report in the area below (200 words max):

Review and Submit News Report:

If you have finished filling out the above form, then click on the following button to get a preview of your report. Your data will be checked for appropriate format, and will give you a first look at what your report will look like on our news service.

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