Editorial policy

Why we are against SOPA

2012-01-19T01:32:15Z

As an owner of Macer Media, publisher of The Sacramento Press, I have never made a political statement on this site. Today I will, out of self-preservation, and a concern for what is just and good for this site, and the people of this community in general.

Wikipedia went black Wednesday due to its strong opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Google also voiced its opposition with a link on its homepage. Many other Interenet companies took similar steps.

So the first question is: What is SOPA?

SOPA is a piece of proposed legislation in the House of Representatives aimed at, you guessed it, stopping piracy. The main proponent of the bill is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and is sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The bill has both strong bipartisan support and strong bipartisan opposition. In other words, this is not at all an issue divided down party lines. Last weekend, the White House came out in opposition to the bill due to concerns about national cyber-security. A very similar bill is to be voted on in the Senate on Jan. 24, called the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

The bill’s proponents claim that the bill is aimed at stopping the piracy of American intellectual property by foreign agents. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent FAQ covering most of the basics of the bill.

So what’s the harm?

Free speech, due process and commercial viability of Internet sites who accept user-generated content are all at risk due to this legislation.

The trouble is in the wording of the bill, which gives the government and copyright holders enormous new powers to stop sites they believe are violating their intellectual property. And while the bill is targeted at foreign agents, nebulous wording would allow for significant compliance and liability costs to be passed along to organizations such as ours. This burden could easily put an organization such as The Sacramento Press out of business.

Even the well-known constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams, who was paid by the MPAA to write a letter touting the bill, admits that, “When injunctive relief includes blocking domain names, the blockage of non-infringing or protected content may result.” Censoring a little free speech can’t hurt that much, right?

Why SOPA?

That’s a good question and one of my biggest problems with the bill. The bill is premised on the idea the piracy is rampant AND that it causes material harm to the United States in the form of lost jobs and lost revenue. The question is, where’s the proof? Tim O’Reilly, owner of O’Reilly Books and a successful digital and print publisher (owner of lots of intellectual property) says it best:

“There's no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?”

I believe that it should be the burden of the proponents of the bill to prove economic harm before seeking a legislative solution.

There has only been one significant independent study done on international piracy concerns, and one of the conclusions it makes is, “…we see little reason to think that changes in IP protection or enforcement will significantly affect (international piracy).”

This is bad legislation that restricts our rights, is aimed a problem that possibly doesn’t exist and will likely do little to prevent what piracy does.

For these reasons, our company strongly opposes SOPA and PIPA.

I’m happy to answer any question and concerns you might have in the conversation below. Here is a link to the full text of the bill.

Disclosure: I contribute $10 a month to a lobbying effort known as Demand Progress. It currently lobbies against SOPA/PIPA. For more info, visit demandprogress.org.

The Sacramento Press policy enforcement change

2009-04-17T13:25:12Z

Until April 14th, 2009 we, at The Sacramento Press, had been lax in enforcing our policies. As of that date we have begun to more strictly enforce our policies.

We strive to be the best source of local news and information in the Sacramento area. We aim to do that with a mix of paid reporting, and contributions from the Sacramento community. However our site is primarily written by community volunteers who submit their content without direct contact with The Sacramento Press

Anyone who lives in Sacramento is welcome to sign up and write for our site with no editorial approval prior to posting. It is a very free system, the only caveat is that you abide by the rules and policies of the site.

While our terms of service, privacy policy and contributor agreement go into depth about our policies, here are a couple of the basic principles.

If you are writing for our site please keep you writing primarily about Sacramento. This site is not intended to inform people about state, national and international news. We want to know what's going on in our neighborhoods and in our area as a whole.
Treat others with courtesy and respect. Do not swear in comments or articles that you write. Do not attack others on the site; debate the issues, not the people.

As we have become increasingly popular these messages have been lost to some of our community contributors and some of our users. We have allowed posts that have had nothing to do with local news and information in Sacramento.

From this point forward we will take down any posts that are in violation of our policies.

Please feel free to comment below or send in your ideas by emailing feedback@sacramentopress.com.

Thank you for being a part of The Sacramento Press.

Sac Press navigation changes

2009-01-01T12:24:08Z

With the start of a new year we, at The Sacramento Press, have decided to update the sections that are present on our navigation bar. As we expand out of our initial test area and cover more of Sacramento, we wanted to update our primary sections accordingly.

Despite the change in the navigation bar our focus remains the same, to be the best source of news and information in the Sacramento area.

Additionally we have found that many contributions to our site are about various cultural topics, such as movies, art and entertainment and so we wanted to include that as well as several other new sections.

While the new sections are more traditional in nature nothing about the way we deliver and cover local content is traditional. We need your help, the help of the whole Sacramento community, in order to tell all the stories in our fair city. So many stories go untold and we are here to provide the community with a means to tell those stories.

What if your story doesn't fit well into one of the above categories?

Not a problem. Each of the sections is merely a tag, or label, describing what a story is about. So our paper can have an infinite number of sections, just not all of them will be present in our top navigation bar.

Over time the sections will change and be updated based on the content we receive and the interests of our readers.

We are here to serve our readers and the Sacramento community.

So please feel free to let us know what you think of the new sections and if you have any recommendations or any other comments, please note them in the conversation below.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading all the untold stories going on everyday in our town.

Geoff Samek, Editor in Chief.

Writing format and style

2008-12-07T01:25:13Z

Format and writing style is about more than just looks. How you format your writing might make the difference between people reading your article or passing it by.

One of the trickiest parts of news writing is keeping things brief and to the point.

Stylistically this means paragraphs that don't exceed two sentences. While it seems excessive, if you read any major newspaper you will realize that this rule is nearly universal.

By adding whitespace an article seems more readable; huge paragraphs deter readers.

Good grammar, spelling and punctuation, is another important part of having your work read. Proofread your work, or have another person proofread it.

If you have no one to proofread your work we, at The Sacramento Press, will proofread your work for you. To do this, simply send us your article at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

We will edit your work and send you the edited version. Our goal is not to change your message, just to make it the best version of your work possible.

There are many more style guidelines that we abide by here at The Sacramento Press and in the next update I will post a list of the most important of those guidelines.

What's front page worthy?

2008-11-24T04:59:51Z

Any article written about local Sacramento topics and covered in a clear, concise and well written language is worthy of our front page.

Not everyone is a great writer. If you have an interesting topic about which you'd like to write, but worry that your writing is not up to snuff, that isn't a problem.

Send us your writing, we'll clean it up and send it back to you. Then you can post with the confidence that it will look professional.

In a physical paper the top half of the newspaper is called, "above the fold." The bottom half is what's known as, "below the fold."

On our website we have a similar notion. Above the first leader board ad is what we refer to as, "above the fold." That content is chosen by our editorial staff.

We also chose the content that goes, "below the fold." Both folds serve to tell you the reader what is the most valuable content on our site in any given day.

The content that we choose for the 2 folds is content that we stand behind. It is content that we believe is truthful, accurate and interesting. This content does not lack opinion.

It also does not represent the opinion of The Sacramento Press, it represents the opinion of the person writing the article, those opinions will vary by writer.

Lastly we have a list of the newest content on the site. That content is completely unfiltered at the time is posted to the site. There is no editing, and no editorial oversight by the staff at The Sacramento Press.

However, if an article violates our terms of use, it will be removed. You in the community can help us find the bad content by flagging it. You can also help us find the great content by rating it with a, "thumbs up."

By working together, you the reader and us the staff, we can give you a the best news and information from around our region.

Do we fact check?

2008-10-14T08:26:01Z

At this time we do not fact check all of our community contributors' content. We will fact check what is written in house by our editors and interns and We do provide resources to our Community Contributors to allow for them to find the most factually correct information available. Should a reader find that a fact is incorrect we have the ability to take down the offending content or issue a retraction.

Our role and the rule of law

2008-10-14T04:48:10Z

A traditional newspaper is a one way street. They write, you read. This policy has worked out pretty well since the first American newspaper was published in 1690. The publishers of newspapers were the primary gatekeepers of daily news and information. They chose what content you saw, and what content you didn't, but they also made pledges to fact check their content and be held accountable for what they wrote. Thus reporting was something for the professionals and best left at that.

Then in the early 1990's the world became acquainted with the World Wide Web, and the Internet caught the world's attention. The Internet was and remains the land of the amateur, the place where anything is possible. Soon anyone with access to a computer could have a voice that the whole world could hear. With this near complete freedom eventually came a slew of difficulties. With no gatekeepers the world of information available online often turned to noise.

Our goal is to highlight and promote the best content among a sea of voices. Anyone can write for our website. There are no interviews, no employment forms and job postings; you simply sign up and start writing. Anything you write will be available on our site forever. However we will choose to highlight certain headlines and comments by featuring them on our front page and our section pages. Our choices will be primarily based on the quality of the writing. Also, the content must not violate our terms of use, which excludes profane and nude content. And while generally the partisan politics of potholes is minimal, it is our goal to feature both sides of any local controversial issues equally. Our goal is not to be fair and balanced by giving you just our view, but to make sure all the voices on an issue are heard. If graffiti is an issue in a particular neighborhood we want to feature stories from all points of view on the issue, from the graffiti artists, from the police, from the people that live in the neighborhood and anyone with a hands on perspective of the issue. Our editorial perspective is about building and identifying real world communities in the Sacramento region and not taking a stance on any one particular issue.