Information on posting to libcom news
Information on the type of news we want
If you've registered on libcom.org, you can post content to our news. There are particular kinds of articles we want most, and some obviously that we don't so much. But don't worry if we can't use something on our news page we will look at any other areas of the site where it might be suitable, or we may edit it to make it fit in.
For a detailed look at the type, style and tone of content we'd like on libcom.org, please take a look at our Style guide.
If you're not sure whether your article is suitable, take a look at our existing news articles for comparison, or consider posting it in the forums first.
For general advice on how to write news articles, see our news report writing guide.
In brief, however, here are a few basic tips and suggestions:
Content
For libcom.org news the main kinds of article we want are as follows, in this order of importance:
1. Stories about people taking collective direct action to improve their lives.
Example: Fighting the Fair Hike in San Francisco
2. Analysis of current events, such as wars, natural disasters and other big mainstream news stories from a class perspective.
Example: Post Office privatisation will be disguised as workers' ownership
3. News about the effects of corporate and government policies on people and the environment.
Example: 12 million trapped in forced labour worldwide
While these are our priorities we will happily publish other news stories provided they fit the aims and ethos of the site with the general exception of the following topics:
Actions:There are many websites for 'activists' to post stories about 'actions' they have taken part in, such as indymedia. We suggest using one of them instead of libcom.
Example: "Activists blockade Esso station"
The left: Leninist groups are a minor irrelevance in society who do not interest anyone. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, let's not give them any attention they don't warrant.
Example: "Trotskyist Workers' Alliance split"
Events: If you would like to advertise an event please use the appropriate board on our Forums.
Tone
To get our message across most effectively, we have decided to try to keep all content with the following tone:
- Serious - avoiding rhetoric and overly emotive language
- Clear - written using simple English, free from jargon
- Concise - try to keep articles below 700 words for news articles, 1,200 for reviews and 2,000 for analysis and features where possible. Longer articles can go in our Library, or if possible split into several news articles.
- Outward-looking - i.e. aimed at the intelligent layperson, not at people who are anarchists, activists or libertarian communists already. Not talking down to anyone, but explaining all historical references, specialised vocabulary, etc. and in general trying to address general issues of concern to all.
Many thanks, and happy posting!
If you need technical help with posting news articles, post in our feedback forum.
Information on the layout and format of stories posted to libcom news
Titles
- Please only capitalise the first letter of any article titles (and any other already-capitalised words of course). E.g. US forces invade Iraq, not US Forces Invade Iraq.
- Please keep headlines short, to 40 characters or less, but still explaining adequately what the story is about.
Introduction
Please try to write an abstract as the introduction to your article, including the key information of Who, What, Where and When. This will appear on news listing pages like libcom.org/news or libcom.org/news/uk. Try to keep it to around 150 characters, or 1.5 to 2.5 lines of text in the entry field.
Tags
When entering tags for a story, please enter between 2 and 10 keyword tags. Enter them in lower case, unless they are proper nouns, and separate with commas. Important things to include are:
- The country the story is in – try to match the tags already in which will show up as you type. America is "USA" for example. UK stories don't need the country, unless Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.
- The city the story in, if it's a big city or US state
- If it's about a big company, the name of the company, e.g. Asda-Walmart
- If it's about a union or mentions a union a lot, the acronym of the union. E.g. Unison or TGWU
- If it's work related, add the name of the sub-industry the story's about, e.g. rail, local government, call centres, supermarkets or whatever
- If it's a strike add the tags strikes, if wildcat add wildcat strikes (as well as strikes), if general - general strikes as well
- If it's an interview, add interviews, if a review add reviews
- Any other good keywords you can think of, like: demonstrations, environment, climate change, police, etc.
Many thanks, and happy posting!
If you need technical help with posting news articles, please post in our feedback forum.