Jeremy Steele / MSU School of Journalism
The Directory Listing page is similar to what you see when creating a news article. Fill out the fields on this page to complete your listing.
Our website network includes directory information for businesses, organizations and government services for the communities covered by JRN 300 classes.
Follow this template so that our work looks alike. Inconsistency looks unprofessional and hurts our credibility.
Create a new directory item
Access the WordPress Dashboard. From the Directory menu item on the left, select “Add New Listing.”
Title
The headline is the organization’s name.
Description
In the post area under the title, do a short writeup describing the business, government service or organization. Follow AP style. Please do not include gratuitous compliments like, “For the best burger in town,” unless you have tried all the burgers in town. Do not take the owner’s word on this. Do not write, “this store can satisfy your every need.” This is doubtful and possibly illegal. You are being nice enough just writing about the place. No need for compliments. They sound biased.
On the last line of the description, put your name with a dash (that’s the long one) not a hyphen in front of it, no space, and make that line italic. You can get hyphens on a Mac with shift/option/hyphen. On PCs, hold down the alt key and 0150.
Example:
— Joe Sparty
Listing fields/images
Jeremy Steele / MSU School of Journalism
Fill out the information in the Listing Fields/Images region to complete your listing.
Please complete these fields, which provide important information for the directory listing:
Website URL
Provide a working URL to a website for the entity. Example: http://www.msu.edu. Leave the optional Link Text field blank.
Phone number
(AP: Only hyphens. No dots or parentheses.)
Contact Email
Hours
List the hours for days of the week, starting with Sunday. Do not abbreviate the days. For times, state a.m. or p.m. with a space in front and no space before the m. Use non instead of 12 p.m. and midnight instead of 12 a.m so people don’t have to figure that out. When you cover a span of hours, do this: 1-5 p.m. if you don’t switch from a.m. to p.m. or vice versa. When you do, it is 1 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Street address
See AP on how to abbreviate street addresses. Do not guess about this. ONLY with a numbered address we will abbreviate Ave., Blvd., St. Nothing else. With a numbered address we will abbreviate compass directions as S., E., W., N., SW., and so on. We do not abbreviate these when there is no address and we are just referring to the street name.
Do not include the city or zip code. We use other fields for those.
Zip code
Include the five-digit zip code for the entity.
Current images
Upload at least one nice photo with a person in it, like the owner or customers doing something or posing in the environment of the business. If you have just a picture of a sign on the door or an exterior as it would look after Armageddon (no people), please do not post. These are just not interesting and do not count.
Unlike the Media Library (which you use for images with stories), photos uploaded to directories do not include captions.
Excerpt
Write a one- to two-sentence summary of the business, service or organization. This excerpt will appear in the directory listing. The detailed description that you wrote appears when a user clicks to view a single listing.
Directory categories
For each listing you create, select the appropriate directory categories. This makes the listing searchable for people using our directory.
Listing region
Jeremy Steele / MSU School of Journalism
Select the State, County and City from the Listing Module region for each directory item you create.
Use the Listing Region module to select the State, County and City for the entity. These fields help make your listing searchable by geography, and will place the entity on a Google Map in the directory.
File for review
Jeremy Steele / MSU School of Journalism
Use the Publish module in the WordPress Dashboard to send your item to an editor or instructor for review
When you have completed a directory item, send it to an editor or your instructor for review using the Publish module near the top right of the listing.