Event Guidelines for News and Events
How do you get an event into News and Events, the electronic newsletter published by University Communications that comes out three times a week during the academic year and twice in the summer? There are different ways, depending on the event. Below is an outline that provides some guidelines on when UComm writes a story previewing the event, when we link to the event’s website in the story section of News and Events (what we call a line item), when we write a story after the event or take a photo of the event, and how an event gets included in the News and Events calendar. Click on the hyperlinks for examples.
RIT's Events Calendar
Regardless of whether an event will be promoted or covered in News and Events, events should be submitted to RIT's Events Calendar.
All RIT faculty and staff have the ability to submit events to the calendar. Those events are then reviewed and published by their college’s or division’s event stewards. Event stewards are responsible for tagging events with colleges/divisions, departments/schools, programs, and other keywords to publish the event to the appropriate RIT webpages in order to reach the intended audiences.
Listing in N&E calendar
What: Event listing in N&E calendar (This is the calendar section of N&E)
Who to work with: All RIT faculty and staff have the ability to submit events to the calendar. Those events are then reviewed and published by their college’s or division’s event stewards.
What we take into consideration: Events run in N&E roughly a week before they occur. Items posted to the RIT Events Calendar are fed into the N&E admin. An event MUST be posted in the RIT Events Calendar in order for it to appear in N&E. And the event must have been approved and published at least a day in advance or it won’t show up in the N&E admin.
We have space to run about a dozen events in each issue, out of more than 70 options.
In general, events are considered for inclusion in N&E if they are:
- Open to the RIT community (OK if registration is required)
- Held on campus
- Of general interest to the RIT community
What would not be posted in N&E:
- Weekly/monthly recurring events (there’s too many of these to promote them all)
- Events held off campus (with certain exceptions, for example: Fringe Festival; partnership events with local groups such as The Little, RMSC, The Strong, etc.; Into the ROC events; etc.)
- “Personal” events (for example: art professors displaying work at local galleries)
- Events hosted at RIT but not by RIT, unless significant impact on parking is expected
- Ongoing events that span several days/weeks, such as gallery exhibits
“Line item” preview link
What: News and Events “line item” preview link (This is when we link to the event’s website in the story section of N&E)
Who to work with: University Communications writers
What we take into consideration:
- An event that hits on key RIT initiatives: creativity and innovation, co-op and careers, leadership in sustainability, welcoming and inclusive environment, global engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, revolutionary research, commitment to goodness.
- Size and scope of the event: Is it of interest to more than one college?
- News value and other news that week for N&E
- Uniqueness – milestone anniversary
- Timing
Event preview story
What: Event preview story for News and Events (This is when a Ucomm writer does a preview story)
Who to work with: University Communications writers
What we take into consideration:
- An event that hits on key RIT initiatives: creativity and innovation, co-op and careers, leadership in sustainability, welcoming and inclusive environment, global engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, revolutionary research, commitment to goodness.
- Signature university-wide event
- Size of the event: Is it of interest to more than one college?
- News value: Does it involve an issue people are talking about?
- Scope (national/international competitions hosted by RIT)
- Uniqueness—first, unusual. (If every college has one, like a Distinguished Alumni Awardee giving a talk, we can’t preview one without doing them all.)
- Timing (if your event is the weekend of Imagine RIT, we will probably not preview or cover it.)
- Advance notice: Do we know about it at least a week in advance?
- Responsiveness of the sources
- Would this be a better event to cover instead of preview?
- What did we do in previous years? What’s new?
- Staff resources
Event coverage story
What: Coverage of events in News and Events (This is when a Ucomm writer and/or photographer attends an event and writes a story about what happened)
Who to work with: University Communications writers
What we take into consideration:
- An event that hits on key RIT initiatives: creativity and innovation, co-op and careers, leadership in sustainability, welcoming and inclusive environment, global engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, revolutionary research, commitment to goodness.
- Scope/impact (national/international competitions hosted by RIT)
- Signature events
- News value: Can we use the coverage for more than News and Events?
- Visual interest: Is it active? If it is just a luncheon, we probably won’t assign it for News and Events.
- Did we write a preview story? What did we do in previous years and what is new?
- Staff resources
Events on RIT homepage
What: Event listing on the homepage
Who to work with: Marie Lang
What we take into consideration:
- An event that hits on key RIT initiatives: creativity and innovation, co-op and careers, leadership in sustainability, welcoming and inclusive environment, global engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, revolutionary research, commitment to goodness.
- Signature university-wide event
- Scope/impact
- Variety: Are different types of events represented?
- News value