How to create a story

Step-by-step walkthrough for writing and publishing a story — the core editorial content type for local news and journalism. Use when someone asks how to write, post, create, or publish a story, an article, or a piece of news.

  1. 1

    Open the story form Open

  2. 2

    Write your headline and the body of the story (bold, italic, and links are supported)

  3. 3

    Add photos, with credit and caption for each

  4. 4

    Cite where your information came from in Sources & Notes

  5. 5

    Choose whether to publish as yourself or under a publication you belong to

  6. 6

    Publish

A story is the heart of My Local Press: written local news and journalism. If something happened and you can tell your community about it, it's probably a story.

The path

Open the story form. Write your headline and body — formatting is deliberately simple: bold, italic, and links. Add photos with a credit (who took it) and a caption (what's in it), and use the Sources & Notes footer to show where your information came from — that's what makes local reporting trustworthy.

You can publish as yourself or under a publication you're a member of. Drafts save as you go; find them any time in My Content.

Good to know

  • Publishing requires being vouched for; drafting doesn't.
  • If you have raw material — notes, photos, a recording — rather than a written piece, the create canvas (limited beta) can help you shape it into a story.
  • Your published stories appear in your feed and your community's feed.

Related: How to get vouched for, Using the create canvas, How to create a publication, Your content, drafts, and analytics, Place photos and video in your writing