Boreal Community Media Content Submission Guidelines​

Boreal Community Media provides articles and other content of interest and involving local stories, news, events and activities in Cook County MN, the Arrowhead region of Northern Minnesota, Minnesota’s North Shore and Thunder Bay, Canada. 

We are small but mighty team of two part-time employees, so we rely on our wonderful freelancers and other content creators to help us spread the word on topics throughout the county. 

We greatly appreciate writers and authors who bring a unique perspective to life, recreation, activities, events and arts and culture in our region.  Articles, stories and columns will all be considered, although we prefer non-fiction, fact-based content.  Our audience is diverse and wide-ranging in demographics, interests and personal pursuits. When submitting articles, consider how it fits within the major categories of the boreal.org website content architecture:  News, Community, Outdoors, Local Life, Arts and Culture and Student Voices.

You can submit your content by emailing it to [email protected]

Before you submit content, we encourage you carefully review the online submissions detailed below. 

Submissions that do not meet requirements will be rejected without editorial review. 

Submission Guidelines:

·   Submit only complete works, rather than outlines. If you would like to pitch a topic or idea before you write a piece on it, you can do so by reaching out to [email protected]. Because we work with several freelance writers, a specific story idea may already be in the works. 

·  Any article that is submitted to Boreal Community Media is done so without expectation of compensation. If you are interested in writing for compensation, please review our freelance writer guidelines, and follow the appropriate instructions to apply. Freelance writers are required to fill out a W9 tax form. 

·  Boreal Community Media accepts the following for consideration for boreal.org:  articles, original stories, columns, interviews, and reviews. Boreal Community Media gives preference to original content that has not yet been published or distributed elsewhere. 

·  When quoting others’ work, include attributions within the body copy following journalistic, Associated Press style. Do not include footnotes, endnotes or lists of references. 

·  As we are a small but mighty team of two part-time employees, the timeline for content review is dependent on the current volume of submissions.

·  If your content is accepted for publication on Boreal Community Media’s website, you will be notified.  

Additional Submission Information:

·   Boreal Community Media gives preference to original content that has not yet been published or distributed widely through other outlets. Boreal Community Media will not accept content that has been written using an AI tool. 

·      Editorial decisions to publish or not to publish content are made at the discretion of BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA and are based on factors including but not limited to: relevance to the region, interest to readers, timeliness and caliber of content.  BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA reserves the right to exercise its editorial judgment and reject any content at any time for any reason.

·      BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA generally re-writes all titles and subtitles to conform to our accepted style guide. 

·      The views expressed on BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA’s website and in our publications are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official positions or policies of the BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA.

·       None of the content that BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA chooses to publish on boreal.org is influenced by sponsors or advertisers, politicians, private or industry sponsors, members, donors, partners or collaborators.

Articles & Photographs:

·      All articles must be submitted in Word format. PDFs will not be considered.

·      All submissions are subject to be edited for accuracy, clarity, quality and length. While BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA will make every effort to work with an author on any editing, we cannot not guarantee that authors will have an opportunity to review their work prior to publication due to time constraints.

·      Include any applicable charts, graphs and images with your submission, but know that BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA typically cannot run every chart, graph or image due to space constraints. Please provide applicable labeling and caption information with these submissions. It is the author’s responsibility to secure the publishing rights to any charts, graphs or images submitted. See image requirements below.

·      References: If detailed attributions are necessary, please incorporate them into the text.

·      Bios:  The author biography should not exceed 50 words and should include: name, position, affiliation and an e-mail address where the author can be reached for more information.  

·      A headshot for the bio section should be included. Image requirements are listed below. Images that do not meet these specifications will be rejected. BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA may or may not resize images. 

Videos:

·      Videos submitted to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA.org must follow the same editorial guidelines as articles.  Videos should not be promotional in anyway. Any content that contains promotional elements or advertising will be rejected. Unlike articles, videos do not need to be original work and can be published elsewhere; however, preference will be given to videos that have not been made widely available on other outlets.

·      Videos must be available on YouTube and be open to embedding. BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA does not accept video files

·      Include link to where video can be found on YouTube and a 150- to 300-word description of the video. Any descriptions that exceed 300 words will be rejected. 

Suggestions: 

·      BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA accepts, and publishes, submissions from a wide variety of subject matter experts.  You do not have to be a leading author or well-known blogger to be a contributor. Content is reviewed on merit, not on who is submitting it. 

·      Bring new ideas and topics to the table.  Our audience always appreciates a fresh approach. 

·      All authors are encouraged to promote their BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA contributions once they are published by BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA on personal and company websites, social media outlets, e-mails to colleagues and peers, etc.

Images Requirements:

Images must be submitted in the size, weight and file type indicated below.  Any image files that do not meet these requirements will be rejected.  Images should be optimized for use on the Web.  

BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA may or may not resize images to enhance the appearance of the article.

 Additional Information: 

Copyright

When you submit content to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA, you agree and represent that you have created this content, or you have received permission from, or are authorized by, the owner of any part of the content to submit it to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA.

By submitting content to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA, you are indicating that you are the sole owner of the content and/or have the authority to give BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA the right to edit, re-title, reprint and repurpose the content as BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA sees fit. 

You still own the copyright to the content sent to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA, but by submitting content to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA, you are granting us an unconditional, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide license to use, publish or transmit on any platform, either now known or hereinafter invented.  No monetary compensation will be provided for any content submission to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA. If you are interested in being compensated, please review our freelance writer guidelines, and follow the instructions to apply. All freelance writers must fill out a W9 tax form. 

You warrant that the content you submit to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA is not obscene, threatening, harassing, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another's privacy, offensive, defamatory of any person or otherwise illegal. You warrant that the content you submit to BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA does not infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other intellectual or proprietary or privacy right of any party or individual. Exclusively AI created content will not be accepted. 

Censorship

As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to censor is “to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.” BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA neither condones censorship, nor knowingly engages in it. BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA reserves the right to exercise its editorial judgment. Editorial decisions to publish or not to publish submitted content are made at the discretion of BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA and are based on factors including but not limited to: relevance to the industry, interest to readers, timeliness and caliber of writing.

Plagiarism

As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to plagiarize is “to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own,” “use another’s production without crediting the source,” or “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.” BOREAL COMMUNITY MEDIA considers other forms of plagiarism to include “self-plagiarism”: instances in which an author borrows from his or her own previously published work without the proper citation within the newly submitted article.

Overall Website Standards

All submissions must comply with the Locable Terms of Service – a copy of which can be read by following the link in the boreal.org footer.

Have a question about the submission process?  Please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond to you as soon as possible.