Guidelines for Submitting Content

• Articles

  Articles should be concise and factual—400 words or less. Provide the name, address and phone number of a person to contact for verification or questions. Stories may be edited for grammar and length. Stories submitted in a timely fashion will be given priority.

• Events

  Send in your news about important events or those you think would interest people in other parts of the Diocese. Your own bulletin or newsletter is the better way to reach your own members with news of events that concern them exclusively.

• Photos

  Photographs are a great way to cover your parish, club or event.

  Here are some hints for taking the type of phtographs the Southern Cross is looking for.

  1. Forget your zoom lens and get closer.
  2. Photos should capture action verbs! People should be doing something—throwing, running, dancing [include the feet] swimming, laughing, cooking, serving. (Posed group photos belong on your web page or in your bulletin.) Remember, use close-in pictures of one to three participants in an event to tell the story.
  3. Photos should be timely. Christmas pageant pictures sent in February are too dated to be newsworthy. (Try to deliver them within 5 days of the event.)
  4. Photographs taken for use in the paper version of the Southern Cross should be 300 dpi at size - 5” x 7” minimum. Photos for online use only should be no smaller than 1600px x 1200px. We need the names of folks in the photo - as well as the photographer’s name.

  Please do not be discouraged: a timely good article will be accepted even though it may need editing.