"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Unknown News is more fun and more informative with your participation, so please don't be shy. Consider yourself invited to speak your mind. We're especially interested in hearing and considering different perspectives. All we ask is that you conduct yourself sanely and civilly. For the most productive dialogue, it helps if you'll cite a specific article or concept we've gotten wrong. But... we get a lot of email.
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We love hearing from readers, but please don't send attachments or other crap we don't want. To get past our filters, please send only plain, uncoded text. Our website is obviously a labor of love. We give it virtually all our spare time, and work our asses off tryting to make Unknown News a site worth visiting. But our time is limited, so ... PLEASE READ THESE FRICKIN' GUIDELINES. See, if you're following our friendly guidelines, you're helping us, and we love ya. But if you're not following these guidelines, you're wasting our time As soon as an incoming email seems to violate these guidelines, we stop reading, hit the delete button, and move on to the next email, with no reply and no regrets. People who repeatedly violate the guidelines are simply repeatedly wasting our time, so we'll auto-filter their emails into the trash. With that introduction out of the way, here are our guidelines for . news . dialogue . and commentary. And here's what you might need to know about the basics of journalism, bylines, chitchat, copyright, disorganization, feedback, hate, hidden URLs, how many is too many, investigative journalism, language, length limits, quality and quantity, reality, rewrites and change-of-hearts, sites we won't link to, and wingnuts.
1. Our beat is 'unknown news' With only rare exceptions, the topics we're interested in do not include Area 51, Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, details you don't really understand about the World Trade Center's collapse, eyeballs inside pyramids, flying saucers, "Holocaust revisionism," Illuminati, Rothchilds, Rockefellers, Skull & Bones phobia, space aliens who walk among us, technologies allegedly suppressed for decades or generations, Trilateralists, or your theories about who killed JFK. 2. We do not link to 'news' from nutball sites. Our credibility is on the line: Every news link must trace back to a mainstream professional journalistic site or to an alternative source or reporter we (Helen & Harry) trust entirely. Picture us sighing as we add: Art Bell, Tom Flocco, David Icke, Alex Jones, Lyndon LaRouche, Wayne Madsen, Al Martin, Sherman Skolnick, Edgar Steele, and your brother-in-law are not what we consider "reliable sources." 3. "If it bleeds it leads" is the media's mantra. We have a different perspective: Personal tragedies are rarely news beyond the victim's friends and family. 4. Other 'news' that isn't news includes poll results, news conferences, politicians making speeches, talking heads talking, backstage political squabbles, announcements of government statistics, et cetera, ad nauseum. Unless there's something truly surprising in there somewhere, chances are we don't give a damn about such stuff. 5. Please look at Unknown News once in a while. Seriously. It makes our heads shake side-to-side, but most of the news-link suggestions we receive are suggesting links we've already linked to. 6. We only include material that really grabs our attention. And you're much more likely to get our attention if, instead of just sending a link, you tell us what you think of the news behind the link. Also, we'll tend to take your suggestions more seriously if you send one or two or even 3-4 link suggestions, instead of twenty, thirty, or 150 at once. Cut through the crap: That's what we love, what we need, and what we like best. 7. We cannot right your individual wrongs, or lead a crusade to deliver you from injustice. Not a week goes by that we don't hear a sad story from someone who's been treated unfairly by his/her boss, local police, City Hall, or some governmental agency, and these people seem to expect us to gallantly take on their causes. People send us their personnel files, court documents, fat files filled with documentation of their every gripes Well, we're rooting for you, but let's get real: This website is published by two people who work for a living, and we put virtually all our spare time into the website and other political activism. We're not your frickin' knights in shining armor, OK? We can nudge you in the right direction, toward the kind of activists who might be able to help you (hint: they're probably listed on our reference page). And if that doesn't work, we can offer a tiny sliver of publicity for your plight8. Many media websites let readers "send an article (or an "e-postcard") to a friend." Please don't 9. We welcome press releases, but we don't welcome wastes of our time. And while we don't appreciate the thought, we don't want to receive a junk e-mail every time you update your website. So when we receive a press release or other announcement that doesn't interest us, future emails from the same source will be filtered straight into the trash. (We seem to receive fewer and fewer press releases...) 10. News from months or years ago is rarely of interest, unless a rerun would shed light on some aspect of more current events. Also, please note: Because we're a weblog of outside-the-mainstream political opinion, we usually edit out last names, email addresses, or anything else that would tend to uniquely identify writers when we publish articles, comments, or incoming emails (if we slip up, please let us know). But if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish all the details, and leave it on-line forever. News link suggestions should be sent to newsuneed at yahoo.com. If you send news to one of our other email addresses, we'll still get it, just not as quickly. If you send the same email to more than one of our email addresses, we'll probably assume it's spam and delete every copy.
"Dialogue" is what we call our "letters to the editor." 1. We publish incoming emails that, in our opinion, add to the dialogue. That means, primarily, emails responding to something that's appeared on Unknown News, or emails about topics that would interest us and our readers. With only rare exceptions, the topics we're interested in do not include Area 51, Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, details you don't really understand about the World Trade Center's collapse, eyeballs inside pyramids, flying saucers, "Holocaust revisionism," Illuminati, Rothchilds, Rockefellers, Skull & Bones phobia, space aliens who walk among us, technologies allegedly suppressed for decades or generations, Trilateralists, or your theories about who killed JFK.2. It's rather important that you let us know what the hell you're talking about. Feel free to respond to anything we've published, recently or years ago, but we've published thousands of pages, so please please please please PLEASE cite the URL, or at least summarize what was reported or said.Even more important than your topic, though, is the length of what you've written. If you send twenty words about JFK's assassination we might publish it, but if you send hundreds and hundreds of words, or a 15,000-word essay titled "Part One," the answer will almost certainly be *NO*, even if the topic is something we might care deeply about. Please bear in mind that your readers (beginning with me) have to get to work on time, so keep it brief, and get to the point. To help understand why this is a problem, here's a common conversation:3. Our dialogue section is for dialogue. It is not a frickin' bulletin board, and it's not a place where you can publish your weblog, free ads, daily list of links, or idiosyncratic sermonettes. We won't publish: • forwarded emails4. Dialogue is usually published verbatim, but we reserve the right to edit for clarity, length, or privacy concerns. We strongly recommend you proofread and spellcheck your email (because we probably won't). No rewrites, please, and no "change of heart" requests. Don't ask ME to fix YOUR mistakes after you've sent something in 5. We welcome and encourage disagreement, especially from people who think we're wrong and want to explain why and how. But you're in our apartment, not in a bar, so we expect you to act like a civilized human being. If you can't chat cordially, you risk having your email deleted or mocked as our patience evaporates. We also recognize, sadly, that many people are too stubborn or simply too stupid to discuss political issues cordially. Our standards aren't particularly high, but we utterly, absolutely, and wholeheartedly reserve the right to put troublesome types out of our misery.We won't tolerate hecklers, dim bulbs, cranks, kooks, or people who just waste our time. If your comments amount to nothing but "Fuck you," we might delete and permanently block your emails instantly, or we might (if we're in a playful mood) try to coax something coherent out of unreasonable emailers. But even if we try, we won't try for long. Three strikes you’re out, and remember, utter idiots are not guaranteed three strikes. If you're an especially smelly ass, you might be out and ejected with your first rude comment.6. We won't tolerate hate material. We don't enjoy knocks on the door from the Secret Service, so we won't publish or tolerate "jokes" about killing the President (or anyone else), ambiguous calls for the people to rise up in violent revolution, etc. Yes, we're willing to be imprisoned or killed for the things we believe, but we're not eager to be imprisoned or killed ... for the things you believe.7. We ask readers, please, to send no more than one email intended for publication daily. We cheerfully help readers toward this goal by publishing no more than one email per person daily. 8. If you send cut-and-pasted comments as if they're yours, or send other people's comments with no attribution and no hint they're not yours, this is called "plagiarism." It's tacky, and it'll get your future emails filtered directly into the trash. 9. Here's a rule you didn't expect: Please don't use the symbols "<" or ">" unless you're coding HTML (see below). Use ( and ) or [ and ] or { and } instead. Why? Because < and > are cornerstones of the code that builds web pages like ours. If you use "<" or ">" as text and we don't catch it and fix it, it'll almost certainly make what you've written look all wrong. 10.Yes, HTML may be included in your email, provided it's correct, and provided it's limited to the commands listed on our HTML page. Fixing your code doubles our work, so if you're coding, please make gosh-dang sure your coding is correct. We also ask nicely that HTMLers don't screw with our general styles, 'cuz screwing around makes the page confusing to readers. Our general format? • What you're saying appears in plain text, with occasional italics or bolding for emphasisAlso, please note: Because we're a weblog of outside-the-mainstream political opinion, we usually edit out last names, email addresses, or anything else that would tend to uniquely identify writers when we publish articles, comments, or incoming emails (if we slip up, please let us know). But if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish all the details, and leave it on-line forever. Dialogue should be sent to newsuneed at yahoo.com. If you send dialogue to one of our other email addresses, we'll still get it, just not as quickly. If you send the same email to more than one of our email addresses, we'll probably assume it's spam and delete every copy.
1. We love publishing original commentary, and we welcome yours. We prefer material that really grabs our attention, which means an opinion piece must say something startlingly out of the ordinary. 2. Life is short and our time is limited, so we won't even respond to writers who haven't read or followed these guidelines, whose facts aren't factual, who send eleven rewrites, who go shriekingly insane when someone politely disagrees, who won't communicate with us when there's a problem, won't allow their work to be edited in the slightest, or otherwise make themselves into ass-pains. With only rare exceptions, the topics we're interested in do not include Area 51, Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, details you don't really understand about the World Trade Center's collapse, eyeballs inside pyramids, flying saucers, "Holocaust revisionism," Illuminati, Rothchilds, Rockefellers, Skull & Bones phobia, space aliens who walk among us, technologies allegedly suppressed for decades or generations, Trilateralists, or your theories about who killed JFK.3. This isn't an iron-cast rule, but it's very much in your favor if we're familiar with an author. And the best way to become familiar is by participating on our dialogue page. 4. Check your facts. Cordially, with all the affection in the world, facts are rather important, and our credibility is on the line with every article we publish. If the "facts" cited in your article are less than factual We don't enjoy knocks on the door from the Secret Service, so we won't publish or tolerate "jokes" about killing the President (or anyone else), ambiguous calls for the people to rise up in violent revolution, etc. Yes, we're willing to be imprisoned or killed for the things we believe, but we're not eager to be imprisoned or killed ... for the things you believe. The penalty? Your email will be blocked, with no second chances.5. Any article published by Unknown News is subject to editing for clarity, grammar, and style. Material should require a minimum of tinkering to be presentable: • Like any reader, we're far more likely to take an article seriously if it's written and presented seriously. Please use standard spelling and grammar rules for American English.6. We love and enjoy reading other weblogs and alternative publications, but we don't have any time or interest in duplicating their work. Thus we reject all "multiple sublissions." We also scratch our heads, wondering about authors who submit an article to several or dozens of weblogs. I understand the desire to see your work published and read, but I never have and never will understand this desire to see one's work published everywhere. So if you're sending something that's already on-line somewhere else, or something you've submitted somewhere else, please send the URL, not the article.7. No rewrites, please, and no "change of heart" requests. 8. If you're sending something that's date-sensitive 9. We rarely link to or publish petitions or "open letters" to politicians. It's a waste of time, since we don't believe the people addressed in such "open letters" will read them, or care. 10. Send original articles as plain, un-coded text, in the body of your email Also, please note: Because we're a weblog of outside-the-mainstream political opinion, we usually edit out last names, email addresses, or anything else that would tend to uniquely identify writers when we publish articles, comments, or incoming emails (if we slip up, please let us know). But if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish all the details, and leave it on-line forever. Commentary links and original commentary should be sent to newsuneed at yahoo.com. If you send commentary to one of our other email addresses, we'll still get it, just not as quickly. If you send the same email to more than one of our email addresses, we'll probably assume it's spam and delete every copy.
And, of course, we break our own rules when we feel like it... A bit about the basics of journalism: The bare-bones basics of journalism is: who, what, when, where, why and how. We're amateur journalists, but that doesn't have to mean half-assed, so if you're participating here, we do ask that you provide the basics.A bit about bylines and pen names: Authors "roll their own" bylines, and we don't keep records of who's who, so please tell us your desired nom de plume, each and every time.A bit about personal chit-chat with the folks behind Unknown News: Readers who raise thorny personal or philosophical questions but don't want their comments published will almost certainly get only a brief reply, if that. We're sorry, but we simply can't be electronic penpals. Our replies are usually brief.A bit about copyrights: Authors retain the copyright on their works. We hold only the right to on-line publication and -- someday, eventually -- an off-line "best of" collection for fundraising purposes.A bit about our disorganization: Please don't send multi-part emails, serialized articles, or anything that won't make sense all by itself (without referring to background material sent separately). We're far too disorganized to keep track of more than one email at a time.A bit about feedback: Some of our readers and writers fear their government, as anyone who knows anything about government should. For this reason, we keep no records of who’s who or how to get in touch. We have no files to seize.A bit about hate: We won't tolerate hate material (i.e., all or most ____________s are lazy, sick, inferior, or deserve a lesser lot in life). And we'll be the judge of what's hate material.A bit about hidden URLs: We can't guess why, but some websites prefer to hide their internal URLs, or change their articles' URLs after a few days, or even a few hours. The Canadian news site "canoe" is a perfect example; most articles people find and send from "canoe" are long gone by the time we get your email.A bit about how many is too many: This website is our hobby and our passion, but we do not post everything anyone sends. We're not stenographers.A bit about investigative journalism: If you have completed serious, credible investiagtive journalism, we'll cerrtainly consider publishing it.A bit about language: Tragically, we are fluent in English, and no other language.A bit about length limits: We don't have length limits, because when you need 10,000 words, you need 10,000 words. Generally, though, briefer is better, and more people will read a few hundred words than a few thousand.A bit about quality and quantity: If you're sending several link suggestions, please send them all in one big email, instead of several little ones. Quality trumps quantity, though. If you're sending more than 3-4 link suggestions daily, unless we're using virtually everything you send you're probably sending too many, or too many reruns.A bit about the reality of running this website: We don’t publish everything we write or find, so we can’t promise to publish everything you write or find. We’re low-level worker-drones doing the website in our spare time, and time is limited.A bit about rewrites and 'change-of-hearts': Folks unfamiliar with the work of web-coding sometimes think it's an instantaneous process, as easy as cut-and-paste. It's not. HTML coding can be a little tedious, and we do it by hand, with no prep-aid software. It can take half an hour (or longer) for us to proofread, edit, prep, and HTML-code an average, uncomplicated article for publication. An article with lots of special effects (bolding, italics, or links to insert) takes longer ... sometimes much longer.A bit about sites we won't link to: We won't link to nutball sites. This includes:A bit about wingnuts: The time we give the website is huge but never as much as we wish it could be. For this reason, we're impatient with wingnuts your |
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