Notes for Contributors

Freedom Festival, Hull, 2014.
Freedom Festival 2014, Hull. Photo: Jerome Whittingham @photomoments.

Thanks for your interest in submitting news and content to HULL IS THIS.

Please read these guidelines, they’ll help you to get your content published on this website.

HULL IS THIS has two key aims, you and your content needs to fit them:

  1. We share news and media of Hull with a positive purpose, to build up communities and people, making the city an even more enjoyable, prosperous, and vibrant place to live, work and visit.
  2. We support and promote the city’s professional writers, photographers, filmmakers, podcasters and freelance creatives. Of course, we’ll also consider publishing material from exceptional non-professionals too, especially students or those taking their first steps in journalism.

Submitted content is more likely to be published if:

  • It is fully written as a press release or article. Apologies, due to time limitations, the editor cannot write up articles from scant notes. Need help? Commission a local freelancer.
  • It is supported by an eye-catching image. JPG or PNG formats are preferred, minimum size of 1,000 pixels on the longest side, landscape/horizontal format preferred.
  • This is a NEWS project, not a SALES project. However, we do of course want to promote enterprise, so tell us why your business is fabulous, why your staff are legends, what an amazing difference you’re making in the city, why your product innovates, why the world needs to know about your business.
  • Events: We’ll seldom publish straightforward listings, as we want an article to tell us what is unique or special about the event, how it came about and what it will achieve, including quotes from organisers or performers etc.
  • Go the extra mile – go the extra sentence. We don’t want ‘rushed’ news. Take your time, speak to more people to get quotes. Give us lots of context.
  • This is not a ‘good news’ platform. Criticism in articles is fine if it’s constructive, offers solutions and, for instance, evidenced and supported by quoted experts. What will the reader learn from reading the article, how does it contribute to the development of the city?

All submitted content is judged against the key editorial question: ‘Is this story adding to, or in some way illustrating, the continuing development of the city of Hull, its communities, and its enterprises?

The Editor reserves the right to edit submitted content.

We’re also looking for exceptional visual and audio content – short films, music videos, stills photographs, podcasts. We will embed or link to these if they’re hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, Audioboom, Soundcloud etc. Again, we’d like a bit of context for these, a short paragraph will do.

Ready to submit something to HULL IS THIS? Great! Send your content to editor @ hullisthis.news

Many thanks,

The Editor