The main qualification to land a job with AccessLocal.TV is an innate curiosity of the world around you. The online news site – an offshoot of Sacramento's public access TV station – is hiring a group of young reporters to produce compelling, local news. But it’s no cakewalk.  "What I tell people, for the first time sometimes in their lives, is your opinion matters, your opinion is important and you have the opportunity to share your story on the internet," said Isaac Gonzalez, AccessLocal.TV youth program coordinator. "It's like a light switch for some kids." Gonzalez, who also runs the news site RanSackedMedia, will be working with the group of six young reporters – ranging from ages 1

Sacramento Press Club presents the premiere of a blockbuster political drama for its annual holiday fundraiser for journalism scholarships. By Kevin Riggs Is is possible for the Capitol community--lawyers, lobbyists, legislators, staff, and media--to set aside deadlines, shelve partisan strife and lay down competitive arms for a night? The Sacramento Press Club thinks it can at the Crest Theater on Wednesday, December 5, by offering a little fictional political intrigue and drama: the local premiere of "Knife Fight." The Sac Press Club has hit on a formula to boost goodwill the last couple of years, with the Schwarzenegger "Gridiron Dinner" in 2010 and the "Dancing with the Capitol Star

The Sacramento Press uses Associated Press (AP) style guidelines. Although Sacramento Press copy editors are able to edit your piece for spelling, grammar and AP formatting, becoming familiar with basic AP guidelines can help you to write cleaner and stronger articles, and it can be a valuable asset in your future writing career. Use the tips below when writing your article, but remember to continue to send articles to journalism@sacramentopress.com before posting. Visit the AP Stylebook website for a more complete look at AP guidelines. timeuse a.m. or p.m. (not AM or A.M.) abbreviate the following months if they are part of a dateJan. 24, Feb. 18, Aug. 31, Sept. 19, Nov. 17, Dec.

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will be putting the spotlight on a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you Darren Hall:     If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

We're going to be mixing things up a bit on our political coverage at The Sacramento Press. First, I'm going to start handling a lot of the day-to-day postings and quick updates, with some longer news stories thrown in for good measure, like today's look at a city audit of a troubled nonprofit organization. My coverage will, to a large extent, be guided by readers: I pay close attention to the comments in all our articles, looking for tips, corrections, new angles and story ideas. You can can also pitch stories directly through our Submit a Pitch a form, or email me at jared[at]SacramentoPress.com. In that spirit of collaboration, I'm going to push as far as I can with the concept of "o

Our political beat and early-morning reporter, Melissa Corker, will be leaving The Sacramento Press to return to her previous job, working with an escrow officer for a title company in Natomas. Melissa joined The Sacramento Press as an intern in the fall of 2011, and was hired as the political reporter that June. She arrived, she said, with “stars in her eyes” and considered it her dream job. The culture, the people and the workspace (especially the pingpong table) at Sac Press impressed her. Melissa’s drive as a journalist – and as a person – was, and is, community service. "That's the whole reason I want to write," she told me. "It's information for people – they find things they did

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will continue putting the spotlight on a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you "Locally Owned" columnist Nancy Flagg:  If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

Everyone has a story to tell. With our “Submit a Pitch” feature, we hope that you will find it easier than ever to tell those stories using our platform. Whether you’re interested in writing or shooting a story yourself or you’d rather just leave us a tip, we want to know what's on your radar. To use the form, click “Submit a Pitch” on our site footer. From there you will be prompted to fill out basic details about your story idea and can let us know how involved (or uninvolved) you want to be should we pursue the story. If you’re pitching a story you’d like to contribute yourself, one of us will follow up with you to get the ball rolling. If you’re just stopping by to leave us a t

It’s not only people that need makeovers. Over the past month we have worked closely with local email marketing company Streamsend to revamp the designs for two of our email newsletters: The “News Digest,” which goes out on Tuesday mornings, and our Thursday morning event newsletter, “Go.See.Do.” We are excited to unveil the updated looks in your inbox this week, starting with Thursday's edition of  “Go.See.Do.” We will still be delivering the same great content but will be doing so with a more aesthetically-appealing and user-friendly touch. Additionally, we’ve added several upgrades we hope you’ll love as much as we do: Mobile-friendly templates Larger photos for your viewing pleas

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will be putting the spotlight on a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you Allison Joy: If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

The Sacramento Bee eliminated 12 positions Monday, but offered six of the affected employees new jobs. Two newsroom employees were laid off, but no writers or editors. "I don't want to discount the fact that some people lost their jobs yesterday, but they were not involved in the gathering of news," said Sacramento Bee Communifty Affairs Director Pam Dinsmore. One of the two newsroom employees laid off worked as a photo technician and the other worked as a newsroom librarian, according to Dinsmore. She catogrized the move as a "reorganization." The Bee and its parent company, The McClatchy Company, have gone through multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years, a symptom of the steady dec

Welcome to another edition of the our a daily blog,  a rundown of items that we're working on, found interesting, or otherwise thought you might want to know about today. As is always the case here at Sac Press, suggestions are welcome. WHAT WE’RE READING FIELD OF DREAMS: With all the talk this week about the potential of building a Major League Baseball stadium at the railyards, a look at another example bears mentioning. According to The Atlantic Cities, the city of Buffalo, N.Y., banked on building an MLB stadium without a team, hoping that an MLB franchise would see the appeal of a new stadium and pull up stakes for a move to Buffalo. That, however, never materialized, and while the

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will continue putting the spotlight a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you Amabelle Ocampo:     If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

Today marks the end of my 135-week journey with The Sacramento Press. Here is my first and last editorial. When I applied to be an intern for an online newspaper in September 2009, I never imagined it would lead me to being the editor-in-chief of anything. In high school, I dreamed of being a writer for a newspaper or a magazine. In my college entrance exam, I wrote about how I wanted to make a difference through my writing. I wanted my voice to be heard. I still remember when I interviewed for The Sacramento Press internship. I sat across from Ben Ilfeld and told him my goals of moving to New York to work for a major magazine. I told him I wanted to go to journalism school. Ben looked

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will be putting the spotlight on a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you Mark Needham:     If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

We are excited to announce the newest addition to The Sacramento Press team – Jared Goyette. Jared is the fourth editor in chief The Sacramento Press has had since it launched in 2008. For the past three years Jared was the online producer for The Miami Herald, writing headlines, selecting the front page stories, editing images and managing social media accounts. On top of managing the morning shift at The Herald, Jared founded a hyperlocal publication called Open Media Miami. Open Media is the community news partner of The Herald and covers the downtown and Midtown areas of Miami. Jared said he started Open Media Miami because he “wanted to experiment with online news coverage … and i

Most people would jump at the chance to interview their favorite band, but when they actually sit down to do the interview, sometimes the questions and answers fall flat. With a limited time constraint and the pressure of hitting it off with the musicians you admire, the nerves and lack of preparation might make you wish you had a do-over when all is said and done. Rick Ele will help you get the most out of your interviews – with musicians or the chef at the new restaurant – at his Breaking the Ice Interview Workshop. The workshop will be held at the Sacramento Press office, from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, April 19. Ele has been a DJ and radio host for 17 years at the freeform community rad

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Among this group, there is a small core of writers and photographers whom we work closely with on a regular basis. These contributors go above and beyond by taking assignments from us, having their articles copy edited and making us very proud as they represent us in the community. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. So we’ll show you a tiny snippet of why we love them. For the past two weeks, we have been rolling out our “community contributor spotlight” video series featuring six of our top community contributors. Without furthe

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Among this group, there is a small core of writers and photographers whom we work closely with on a regular basis. These contributors go above and beyond by taking assignments from us, having their articles copy edited and making us very proud as they represent us in the community. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. So we’ll show you a tiny snippet of why we love them. Through next week, we will continue rolling out our “community contributor spotlight” video series featuring six of our top community contributors. Without further

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Among this group, there is a small core of writers and photographers whom we work closely with on a regular basis. These contributors go above and beyond by taking assignments from us, having their articles copy edited and making us very proud as they represent us in the community. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. So we’ll show you a tiny snippet of why we love them. During the next week, we will continue to roll out our “community contributor spotlight” video series featuring six of our top community contributors. Without furt