Transcript Delivering the RNLI story, photos and video to the media

News Centre 1.1
Logging into the
News Centre and creating
your release
LPO direct
1. Open Internet Explorer and type in the following URL:
2. Select Windows Authentication
from the dropdown menu
3. When the Windows Security box
appears, please enter your full
username and password and click ok
You need to enter the full username so
it should look like this:
[email protected]
Please note your login is case sensitive
This is the News Centre
dashboard
You can set your preferences – this
saves you work later. The system
remembers some key data, including
your location, station or beach name
Set your preferences – and click ‘Save’
at the bottom. You can change these at
any point or tailor them to individual
news stories if you need to
Type in your headline – 80 characters max – and click ‘Continue’
The spellchecker reviews
all text on the form
Use the blue ‘?’
help buttons
for handy tips
The first sentence is
automatically formatted in bold
and is limited to 255 characters,
around three lines in Word on
the standard template
Type in your news release. Alternatively,
you can copy-paste from Word, etc, by
clicking on the ‘Paste’ button top left or
by right clicking on your mouse and
pasting. You can use bold, italics and
bulletpoints from the menu above
To get links to work, re-type the
address in full. Don’t worry if the
font appears bigger – it will
correct itself when published
Click on blue ‘Select Location’ link.
Type in the location of the event or incident and
click ‘Zoom to place’ then ‘OK’, below
The lat-long coordinates will appear
next to ‘Select Location’ – this
allows the RNLI website to tailor
news stories to the reader’s location
Select regions and topic fields
Start adding photos at this point – the
primary photograph appears at the top of
your news release. If you plan to add a
video, your first photo will appear below
the news release
Complete the fields and click ‘Upload’. A
progress bar will appear. Then click ‘OK’ at the
bottom of the pop-up box
You can add up to six photos
You can add up to two videos –
the primary video will appear at
the top of the news release, the
second video at the bottom. Insert
the link from the video player (see
next page)
Click on the ‘Link’ symbol on the video
player in the News Centre. This displays
the full link - copy this and paste it into the
video box. You can also use the ‘Copy to
clipboard’ button
Paste the video link into this box.
Add a second video if necessary
Put an interesting quote or fact
into the ‘Key quote’ field – copy it
from your text, above. There is no
need to use quotation marks
If applicable, select lifeboat
stations and beaches
You can add a photo of yourself - a small
JPEG is best, cropped to a square. Warning
– the photo should be appropriate – a
smiley face linked with a tragic story will be
offensive. You can also upload for other
people and overwrite names
Next steps – two options to choose before you save your draft
You have the right to publish direct to the
News Centre. But if you want somebody to
proofread your news release, tick this box
This sets a date and time for the story to appear
on the News Centre once you have taken the
next step to publish or, if you ticked the box for
review, when Communications have approved it
Click ‘Save as draft’
Save
your
work!
News Centre 1.1
Publishing your news
release
‘Save as draft’ puts your news release into your own work basket
– but you still have to publish it or send it for review
At this stage you can check how
your news release will look by simply
clicking on the headline – this throws
up a full preview version
Don’t worry if the headline
has added a ‘1’ or ‘2’, etc.
This will not appear on
the published version
Find the dropdown menu with your mouse and click on
‘Publish/Send for approval’. The status will change to
‘Approved’ unless you have ticked the box asking for review.
In that case the status will change to ‘Pending’ as
Communications reads your story)
Once you have published your news release, or
Communications has approved it, the status will
change to ‘Approved’
News Centre 1.1
Making changes to your
published news release
To change, remove or delete an approved and published
news release, click on the dropdown menu
‘Edit’ leaves the news release on
the website but allows you to
make changes. Remember you
will need to republish it (or send
for approval) to make those
changes appear
‘Delete’ destroys the news
release entirely
‘Unpublish’ removes the news release
from the website and changes the
status back to ‘draft’ – this is useful if
there is suddenly a question mark
over the contents
‘Unlock’ can be used if the system
says the news release is locked for
editing. Sometimes this occurs as a
technical glitch but it may also mean
somebody else is editing the
document – proceed with care!
News Centre 1.1
Sending your news release
to journalists
Method 1 – copy paste your news release into an email
Warning: this may not work with all email and browser combinations. See Method 2
First create a new email and
write an introduction to the
journalist and add a link to
the press release.
Go to your published
news release and click
on ‘Print this page’
Press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘A’ to
mark the entire text.
Then press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘C’
Press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ to paste
your news release into the
body of the email
Method 2 – if copy paste does not work
First create a new email and
write an introduction to the
journalist and add a link to
the press release.
Go to your published
news release and click
on ‘Print this page’
Tip: enlarge or reduce the
size of the screen with ‘Ctrl’
and ‘-’ or ‘+’.
Tip: remove the webpage
header with F11
Then press ‘Ctrl’ and
‘PrintScreen’ to effectively
take a snapshot of the screen
Press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ to paste
your news release into the
body of the email