Dear all

Congratulations on your plans for Green Focus.

I am a big suppporter of Green Party newsletters. I expect to offer 
submissions to you from time to time in the future.

I see that you already have some basic submission guidelines.

> 1.  News articles: brief analyses of news developments or Green Party related news -- approximately 500 words 
> 2.  Opinion articles: a more in-depth analysis of current issues or discussion of Green Party theory -- up to 1500 words 
> 3.  Book reviews: up to 500 words 
> 4.  Cartoons 
> 5.  Photos: in tiff format 


I want to make three suggestions to you in that vein.

First, I'd like you to consider a bit more flexibility in article 
length.  Both news articles and opinion pieces can have depth.  I would 
argue that news articles shouldn't be limited to 500 words, as that 
would prevent in-depth analysis of key Green Party election results.  As 
example, I give you the piece we did a couple of years ago on why the 
Greens in Arcata lost the City Council majority there - 
http://www.greenpages.ws/v5i1/ornelas.html

Second, I want to share with you the last editorial guidelines draft 
update I did for GreenPages (the nat'l Green newsletter that I was 
editor of for four years).  Those guidelines went into great depth about 
the different types of content that could be included in such a 
newsletter.  Obviously the needs of our state party are different than 
the national, but I think these guidelines could be food for thought for 
a more explicit and developed editorial policy that would fit our state 
-- http://www.feinstein.org/greenpages/editorialpolicy2002.html  (in 
addition to this link, the text is reprinted below)

Third, I would suggest that in conjunction with having more formal 
editorial guidelines, that Green Focus establish a work plan for the 
next year or two.  Such a work plan would indentify in advance, likely 
topics to be covered during that period, corresponding to the election 
calendar as well as the party's own internal calendar.

Fourth, I suggest that you consider the idea of having a larger 
editorial board.  It still under this concept, as you do now, to have a 
smaller group of editors with final executive editorial authority. 
However, I believe it ishealthier for the state party if there is a also 
broader group that helps develop and implement the editorial guidelines. 
  If you were inclined to have such a group, I would also suggest that 
none of the state Coordinating Committee members be on the Editorial 
Board. Mixing executive and editorial power has the potential to create 
unproductive conflicts - this happened on the national level and there 
is no reason to recreate this problem unnecessarily for ourselves.

Fifth, I would like to suggest that you develop a team of geographically 
diverse corresondants (some of which could also be Editorial Board 
members) that are approved under the umbrella of Green Focus.  These 
correspondants could cover news in their regions and work in conjunction 
with the editorial guidelines and work plan, so that you have people 
that you already have confidence in that you can assign these tasks - 
and to whom such assignments would be expected and hence more likely to 
actually get done.

Sixth, I suggest that you assign one or more persons to cover each state 
party meeting, as if it were a news story in and of itself.  Ideally 
such a person(s) would not be delegates, but would be free to roam the 
meetings freely and cover it as would a journalist.

Finally, I would suggest a brainstorming session about the interface 
between the hardcopy of Green Focus and the papers' on-line web 
presence, with a look towards the option of updating Green Focus on-line 
in between meetings with breaking news and analysis.

Mike