Journalist Guide
How journalists publish on My Local Press and reach their community.
Getting Started
A seasoned journalist or anyone with a story to tell can start publishing local news and community content in minutes.
For a step-by-step setup walkthrough, see the Journalist Quick Start.
- Create an account and verify your identity
- Set up your profile with your Primary Contributing Location
- Start creating content - stories, classifieds, or podcasts
- Publish to your community and start building your audience
Building Your Profile
A profile is a journalist's public identity card — and beyond the basics (name, photo, bio, website), it can carry whatever sections tell their story. In profile settings, add sections from the list — Education, Experience, Areas of Expertise, Hometown, Languages, Awards, extra links — or create custom sections with any heading. Reorder them however reads best; the profile shows them in exactly that order.
- Everything is optional, and everything shown is public. Add what belongs on a public byline page; skip what doesn't. Sections are self-described — they're a journalist's own account of their background.
- Start from a resume. Upload a resume (PDF or Word) or type a quick summary, and we'll draft sections to review and edit before anything is saved. The document is read once and deleted — it's never stored or shown.
- Why it's worth doing. The profile is where a press pass points and where readers land from a shared link — a filled-in profile turns a byline into a person.
Understanding Location
A journalist's content appears in feeds based on where it's published, so readers in that community find it.
Setting a Primary Location
A journalist's home base — the community they regularly cover. Set it in profile settings.
- Pick the community hub, not a home address. Choose a central point like the town center or city hall, and drop a pin with the map picker.
- Why it matters. The Primary Location is the default community a journalist's work shows up in. A journalist who lives 20 miles outside a small town but covers it should set Primary to the town center, so their stories land in that town's feed.
- Keep it stable. The Primary Location should reflect where a journalist actually reports — updated when they move or their coverage area changes, not story to story.
Choosing where this story appears
When publishing, a journalist picks one of three locations for the story:
- Area — about a mile wide, based on where the journalist actually is (it asks for location permission once). The story lands in the neighborhood, not at their feet.
- Precise — the exact spot, published with the story, down to where they're standing. For reporting from the scene: a crash site, a storefront, an event address. Never for anywhere they wouldn't want on a public map.
- Primary — the community set in the journalist's profile: their town, not their position. Use this when traveling but still writing for a home community.
What readers see: a place name like "Santa Fe, NM" and a pin at the precision the journalist chose. Area and Primary never share an exact position; Precise shares exactly the spot shown on the form.
Reading vs. Location Discovery
A journalist's readers always see all their content regardless of location. Location only affects how new readers discover the work when browsing their local area. If someone reads a journalist or their publication, they'll see everything that journalist publishes in their Reading feed.
Publishing Content
Each content type is designed for a different way to contribute to the community:
Stories
News articles, features, opinion pieces, and community updates. Add photos and videos to bring stories to life.
Long-Form & Podcasts
Audio and video a journalist publishes — podcasts, interviews, discussions, and local commentary.
Advertisements
Support local journalism by offering to advertise, or request ad support from businesses and readers in the community.
Classifieds
Local listings for jobs, items for sale, services, and community announcements.
Resources
Guides, directories, and reference material that helps the community — from emergency contacts to local service guides.
Events
Local happenings — town halls, festivals, fundraisers, meetings, and anything the community should know about.
Coupons
Deals and offers from local businesses — a way for the community to support and discover what's nearby.
Initiatives
Community-driven proposals for collective action — petitions, discussions, and organized efforts on issues that matter locally.
Polls
One question put to the community with 2–6 answer options. Results publish to everyone when the poll closes.
Surveys
Up to ten questions — multiple choice, yes/no, ratings, or short answers. Responses go only to the author; readers see a response count.
Spotlights
Requests from readers for local coverage — ask journalists to report on a meeting, investigate an issue, or cover a story that needs attention.
Republishing Older Work
If you're bringing earlier work onto My Local Press — pieces you first published in a print paper, on another site, or under a publication that's no longer around — open Archival options on the create form. It stays tucked away until you need it.
- Original publication date — set the date the piece first ran, and it takes its rightful place in feed history instead of appearing as new. The record also keeps the date it was added here, so nothing is misrepresented. You can only set this when a piece is first published.
- Custom byline — credit the original author when they're not on the platform, like a guest columnist or an archival writer. The name is shown in place of yours, without a profile link.
Bringing over a whole catalog or archive? That's handled per-request — reach out through Feedback and we'll work out the import with you.
Using AI
My Local Press includes an AI writing assistant powered by Anthropic's Claude Opus 5. We encourage using AI as a tool to help with the work — but the journalism belongs to the journalist.
If you already work in Claude, you can connect My Local Press there and have what you've written land in your account as a draft. See Working from Claude.
AI-Assisted Writing
Using AI to help outline, draft, or refine writing is fine. But a journalist is responsible for fact-checking everything they publish. AI is a collaborator, not a source — its output should be treated the same way as an unverified tip.
AI-Generated Media
AI-generated images, video, and audio must never be used to depict something real that didn't happen. A fabricated photo of a public official, a doctored video of an event, synthetic audio presented as a real recording — these are prohibited.
AI-generated visuals used for creative or illustrative purposes — artwork, graphics, visual storytelling that isn't pretending to be documentary — are welcome.
Building an Audience
We provide the platform. Journalists bring the audience. The journalists who do well here treat their work as a small business — using every channel they already have to drive readers to their stories.
Use an existing network
Most journalists already have an audience somewhere — an email list, a newsletter, a social following, a group chat of regulars, an email signature people see every day. Point all of it at the work published here.
- Share the profile link — every profile has its own shareable link, found on the profile or the edit-profile screen. It goes in social bios and anywhere people follow a journalist, so readers can find everything they publish in one place.
- Newsletter or email list — Mailchimp or plain email — when a journalist publishes a story, they send the link.
- Social media — Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, TikTok. Wherever the community already follows a journalist, share the story.
- Email signature — link to a latest piece or profile. Every email a journalist sends is a quiet promotion.
- Word of mouth — the local coffee shop, the regulars at the meeting a journalist covered, the people who tipped off the story in the first place. Tell them when it's published.
- Cross-promote with peers — other journalists, other publications, other community contributors. Small networks compound.
Be the kind of writer worth reading
- Be consistent. Regular publishing builds an audience that comes back.
- Cover what matters. Stories that affect the community directly. Specifics over abstractions.
- Engage with readers. Respond to comments. Build relationships.
- Create an organization. Group work under a publication name to build brand recognition over time.
Why this matters for income. Every reader a journalist brings to the platform reads, clicks, and listens. Those are the metrics advertisers see — the ones that justify their next month of support and convince new advertisers to back the journalist. Driving readership is the work. The platform measures it so the people backing a journalist can see what their money produced.
Earning Money
90% of every direct contribution — from friends, family, and the local businesses in a journalist's community — goes to the journalist. Backers support them directly, and their share is transferred the moment the payment clears. No audience threshold, no minimum payout, no startup cost. The 90/10 split and the full price breakdown are on How Payments Work.
The same model works for any publication or organization a journalist has created on My Local Press. Backers can support the entity directly — 90% goes to the entity's account, same split.
Readers can also subscribe. A journalist or publication can put stories, broadcasts, and long-form videos behind a monthly subscription — readers see a preview and a subscribe button, and subscribing opens everything. Community content like events and classifieds stays open. Same 90/10 split, enabled in Payment Settings.
When an advertiser backs a journalist with a Full or Minimal Ad, they can see how it performed — impressions, clicks, audio plays, 30-second listens. The readership a journalist drives is what they're measuring, so Building an Audience is how they grow it. Full detail on what advertisers see is in the Advertiser Guide.
When someone chooses to support a journalist, they choose how visible they want to be:
- Full Ad — a real ad in the feed for their business.
- Minimal Ad — a clean credit line ("Supported by Main Street Coffee").
- Profile Support — their name on the journalist's profile, or "Anonymous" if they prefer. No feed placement.
Every tier can be one-time or recurring monthly. The Profile tier is the natural ask for family and friends who just want to back the work — it doesn't feel like buying an ad, and they can stay anonymous. Tier pricing is on How Payments Work.
What this can look like
Local brewery — Full Ad, $200/month
They want measurable visibility in the community they pour beer into. The journalist receives $180/month — that's $2,160/year from one supporter.
Local nonprofit — Minimal Ad, $100/month
A clean "Supported by …" credit line in the journalist's stories. The journalist receives $90/month — that's $1,080/year per nonprofit.
Aunt Sue — Profile Support, $50/month
Her name on the journalist's profile, or "Anonymous" if she'd rather. The journalist receives $45/month — that's $540/year per supporter.
A modest mix adds up.
One brewery at Full, two nonprofits at Minimal, a dozen friends and family at Profile would be about $900/month, or $10,800/year, going to the journalist. That's an illustration of how the splits stack up, not a forecast — what a journalist earns depends on how many people back them.
How Payments Work
Tier prices, the recurring math, when payouts arrive, and how the 10% platform fee gets used.
We ship updates all the time, so a page here and there can fall behind. See something off? Have a question? Let us know and we'll address it.