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Dateline:August 28^th, 2020 (Day 4665)
Location: James S. Brady Press Room, The White House

How to Write a WHPR:


:1: And Now For Something Completely Different (part 2)



In part 1 we covered a general overview of the job. Here's a highlight:
"As with any Cabinet position, the job is what you make of it. I chose to do more. You may choose to do less. Your President may have specific ideas of what is to be done, and how the job is to be done. Ultimately, you will be "the official voice of The office of the President and the White House," and all eyes are upon you."

And we covered form and format. A snippet from that piece:
"The main element of this format are the segments. You can cover any number of stories within an edition-- more stories, shorter segments; less news, go for a long segment.
A segment is not a full page article-- it's a segment. Optimally, a segment is three or four paragraphs, each of those being two to four sentences. Introduce the topic and get all the pertinent facts in right away, then fill out the story mid-segment, and finish with a "hammer" or "hard closer" that makes an impact."

So let's wrap up a couple loose ends...



How to Write a WHPR:
^{Melissa Rose}

Images: in keeping with consistent formatting, I usually try to resize all images to 675px wide. Top to bottom, all images the same width, looks nice and clean. I don’t always do this but the point is… consistency.

The other big deal about images, and it's way more important than resizing, is that you should never hotlink images. Here's why:

A while ago, when I first started doing this, I hotlinked a cool image right at the top. The guy who owned the image had some sort of tracker running and he swapped the image for a particularly nasty porn pic using the same URL. Of course, this got noticed and reported to Admin, who then pulled the edition, and suspended both me and the paper for a few days.

So the moral of the story is... don't hotlink. Download, upload, use TinyPic or imageshack, own and control any images you use.



post-publication edit:
YouTube links, eRep doesn't handle the "https" link you probably from YouTube, probably from being signed into an account there. When you do post a YouTube link, like for your "mood music," remove the S and make it an http link. ( the rules have changed since I originally wrote this but I am not sure what they are now. So you’ll need to figure that out for yourself)

Post-Publication: I already talked about getting your Shout done right, and posting it as your own first Comment before someone comes and posts "first!"

But then, after hitting that Publish button, go back and read your work. Go over every line and look for misspellings, grammar, etc. that may have escaped you during your whole writing and assembly process. Look at the formatting of spaces before and after images, so it's not crammed together as it may translate differently once you go live. An image link may be broken, or there may be paragraphs stacked on top of each other, where you had intended a blank line space. Check over the entire piece with a fine tooth comb, it'll make all the difference between clean and junk. You usually have to double or even triple space after you use the [ center ] code

Content: The WHPR is the face and voice of the Office of the President and the White House, and as such needs to be fully professional and respectful. Just treat the newspaper, the President and your readers with respect.

There are things that do not fly in the official government newspaper.
One is blatant campaigning for your President's re-election.




If some hot topic or story sounds even a little bit secret, or not quite ready for public consumption, then, by all means, check with the President or SecState or NSC Chairman first. While we do want to be first to break a big international story, we don't want to piss off an ally or tip-off an enemy ahead of a military or diplomatic action. A SecMed has direct and unfettered access to all the top people-- use it or lose it.

And, last but first. remember who you work for-- the President. If your President is doing good things, make him look great in this newspaper. If your President is fouling up, ignore it and find something else to write about. Do not criticize your President or his programs and policies in this, his newspaper.

Being Secretary of Media is an honor, one with great responsibilities. which, for the most part, I have taken very seriously. For me, this is as close to real professional journalism as I'll ever get. I can write all the crap I want in my own paper, and starting next week I will, but here.. as the face and voice of my President and the White House, I pull together all the professionalism and decorum I can muster. I trust my successor to continue to do the same, to deliver a quality product-- on time, every time, without fail.

Thank you all





Melissa Rose
Stand in SecMed


erepublik.com/en/article/2722839
How to write a WHPR