My experience with newspaper writers is that they are very receptive to a background paper full of facts, but written like a newspaper article. Add eye-catching, human interest photos. The editor often will accept it and run with the item as a feature. If passed to a reporter with an invitation to a meeting, you may get a revised story using your input, his new thoughts, and his byline.
Have used this method successfully with the Durham Herald. The editor took the story and photos and gave us a 3/4 page article (covering a charity). The InstallFest could be TriLUG's story. Focus on the desktop user and "Home Users Leap to Linux." Things that caught my attention at the last InstallFest were: 1. A kid and his dad building a new box for gaming 2. People traveling great distances to participate 3. Helpfulness of the TriLUG group 4. Friendly, festive event. 5. Local business providing equipment (monitors) for event. Focus on the emerging desktop Linux. Cover the humble beginnings in Chapel Hill five years ago. Compare that to standing room only meetings now. If the Steering Committee prepared material covering the Summer InstallFest, with pictures, it should get the material to the Durham Herald and N&O at least two weeks before the event. Include News Channel 14 and WRAL. Both thirst for material. Having a major Linux player providing support (product) would be helpful. Since Red Hat is moving toward enterprise, they may not be an InstallFest option. SuSE? IBM? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mark Fowle Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 12:45 PM To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list Subject: Re: [TriLUG] article: N&O Home Users Leap to Linux Considering I mentioned TriLug more than once during the interview - so did my wife.... I was hoping that it would have made the side-bar as well. Mark On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 12:34, Scott Lundgren wrote: > Home users leap to Linux > Security problems, costs make Microsoft less appealing > http://newsobserver.com/business/story/3034938p-2777326c.html > > Surprisingly, for having passed it's 5th b'day and being mentioned in the > nationally published LinuxWorld mag, TriLUG is not explicitly listed in the > Resources side bar. The steering committe might want to mention these points > methinks, the writer's contact info is at the bottom of the article. > > - SL -- Mark Fowle [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
