Style Sheet for the “Guelph Back-Grounder”

The Guelph Back-Grounder is meant to be a long-form blog that functions as a resource for the Guelph Community. The idea isn't to build a regular readership, but rather an encyclopedia of information that can be drawn upon by the general public when they have questions about specific policy issues or political discussions. It is meant to be a corrective to two problems. First, with the decline of print journalism, anything that can't be reduced to a “sound bite” or a straight-forward “he said, she said” sort of story simply ends up not being reported. Secondly, this leaves open a vacuum which some parts of the community have no qualms about filling with whatever notions their ideology programs them to believe. As a result, there are lots of people with good will who really don't know what the heck is going on, and, others who are spreading total nonsense because they believe it “must be” true and no one is telling them otherwise.

This is not a good situation. I'm hoping that there will be enough demand for solid information that the Guelph community will read and support an object news source that fills this void.

Every news organization requires an underlying philosophy. And the Guelph Back-Grounder's will be the same one used by the BBC. The official government policy towards the BBC was "always tell the unvarnished truth and people will listen to it”. This has made it one of the cornerstones of British foreign policy almost from it's inception. In countries all over the world, people of all political and ethnic persuasions tuned into the BBC because they believed that it would not lie to them the way the propaganda organs of their own country usually did.

To this end, the Guelph Back-Grounder encourages---actually demands---that writers “give the Devil his due”. No matter how much you hate someone, if he does something that is good for the community, we want you to say it. And no matter how much you love someone, if she screws up, we want that said too. And most importantly of all, we want writers to use this phrase a lot:  “I don't know”.

In addition, submissions need to be written in a way that ordinary people can understand it. This doesn't mean “dumb it down”. But it does mean use lots of illustrative examples. Also as much as possible do not use acronyms---but if you do, write them out in full first before you use them again. As well, there should be references both to back up what you are saying, and, also to allow anyone who wants to learn more to pursue it. This is a blog, not an academic paper, but links show that you aren't just making stuff up. Try to make references to things on the Internet, so I can add links when I post your story to the Weblog. Wikipedia is an excellent resource for this sort of thing.

Portable Document Files (PDF) are strictly forbidden. We want the community to use as much of this website as possible. Removing the option of “drag and paste” quotes from the website guarantees that there will almost no word-of-mouth advertising through social media.

Graphics are encouraged, but we will only include ones that are either public domain or clearly allowed by whomever controls the copy right. As well, plagiarism will be dealt with severely---(as in being publicly outed and humiliated by the editor.) And nothing that could be remotely construed as libellous will be allowed---so no “anonymous sources say such and such about so and so”. If we do our job well with this blog, there will be “interests” who would like nothing better than to put us out of business with a lawsuit.

The writing style should be philosophical. That is to say, it must follow syllogistic reasoning based on evidence and logic. That is to say that it will follow the following type of structure. “A”, “B”, “C”, and “D” are the case. In addition it is also the case that “if A and B, then it follows that E is also the case”. And also, since we know that “if A and E both exist, then Z must also be the case”, then “Z” must also be the case. Many writers do not follow this style and instead make strong emotional statements without any supportive evidence. Indeed, almost all op ed pieces in the “lame-stream media” follow this format. The Guelph Back-Grounder only allows logical, evidence-based stories. If this is a difficult way for you to write, do not be alarmed, as the editor will be there to work with you to put it into this format. You have been asked for a submission because you have some expertise that allows you to understand some aspect of public policy that is important to your fellow citizens. The editor's expertise is in explaining complex issues in simple terms---together we will be able to come up with a useful document.

When the article is finished, it will be posted into the website with a “executive summary” preceding it. There will be anchor tags in the body of the text that will connect with the points in the summary. The hope is that this make each story very useful for anyone who wants to research any given issue. If you want to take a stab at writing the executive summary, feel free. But the editor will do so if none is provided.

If you think you would like to write something for the Guelph Back-Grounder write a short description of the story idea and why you have special insight into this particular issue. You can send it to Bill Hulet at thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com.

Bill Hulet, editor and publisher, the Guelph Back-Grounder

What is the "Guelph Back-Grounder"?

I've been going to the "Breezy Breakfast" meetings started by Phil Alt and James Gordon this summer. It's a good way to get to know various local politicians. (I've seen Mike Shreiner, Lloyd Longfield, June Hofland, Mike Salisbury, and, Leanne Piper there too.) A lot of good conversations have ensued raising a lot of issues. But a few things in particular really struck me.

First, I heard our local officials talk about the huge workload that they face. Amongst other things, they routinely get a big stack of paper---often several hundred pages long---on Friday afternoon that they are expected to read and assimilate by Monday night. Even worse, it turns out that staff don't prepare executive summaries for them. (That's something that our local MP at least gets.) This means that we, as citizens, cannot expect the people we elect to have a handle on everything that comes before them on at any given meeting. This has left me scratching my head as to where I am expect to look to be able to answer complex, in-depth questions about city issues. Staff are just as busy. Moreover, they aren't really supposed to take a stand on anything---which makes it very hard for them explain their point of view on an issue.

Second, I've been struck by the great wealth of experience that exists in this community. Lots and lots of people are "stake holders" who have spent a great deal of time getting to learn a lot about some specific issue that is of interest to them. This is a tremendous potential resource for the community. Unfortunately, this resource has tended to be wasted. There are a variety of reasons why this happens.

The traditional news media---even when we did have a daily newspaper---couldn't use it. This is because paper-based news vehicles were all based on selling advertising and then sticking in as many news stories as would fit in the space that the ads paid for. I wrote a weekly column for the "Mercury" for three years and I was given 800 words and that was it. It can be very difficult to explain a complex issue that very few people have heard about in such a short space. Even if we did still have a newspaper, it would have to compete with many other venues for advertising dollars. This is why papers get thinner and thinner, reporters get fewer and fewer, and, stories get smaller and smaller.

Television and radio are much worse---often if something cannot be explained in a half-minute it simply doesn't exist. Beyond the space limitations, there is the fact that a new newspaper or news cast has to be created every day. This is not a recipe for allowing people a full introduction to the complex issues at play!

Luckily, we have the Internet and social media. There are new news websites popping up.  In fact, I've been adding their links to the Guelph Back-Grounder's home page. But on-line news sources have their own dynamic, which has many similarities to the others. Advertising dollars are paid on the basis of "clicks", which means that the news site has to put out a lot of sensationalist "click-bait" in order to make their money. And they need to create big, repeating readerships in order to get enough clicks to pay the bills. They don't want someone to come in and read a long-complex story because they have a genuine interest in it. Instead, they want people to come back over and over again to read small, sensationalist stories. There's no conspiracy, that's just how you make money in this economy.

The Guelph Back-Grounder has a different model.  First of all, the people writing the stories are not expecting to get paid. Some of them work for Non-Governmental Organisations and part of their job description is "getting the word out" about specific issues. Others are engaged amateurs who are really involved in an issue because they are passionate about it. But in each case they are not professional writers who are expected to produce so much copy every day or else they don't get a cheque. This is a "one off" for them. Not having to pay the writers allows the Guelph Back-Grounder the opportunity to work in the "long form" format instead of the standard for-profit "click-bait" style.

Long-form stories are not primarily designed to be read quickly by a large number of dedicated subscribers and then quickly fall into oblivion. Instead, they are meant to wait on a server and sit until someone actively searches them out using a search engine. These sorts of stories can also be very popular and get lots of hits, but they are very difficult to monetize. But just because something doesn't make a lot of money  doesn't mean that they aren't tremendously important to society! As Ross Perot would say "the Devil is in the details", and we can't run a society with everyone working on the basis of what they've learned from "dumbed-down" news sources.

The Guelph Back-Grounder will require a lot of Editorial work, however. Stories don't just "show up"---someone has to go out and find the people who specialised knowledge that the community needs. In addition, most people who do know a lot are not writers. They will need someone to work with them very intensively to ensure that a minimum standard of quality is created.  People need to know that the facts are probably true and the language understandable. Making sure that this happens is a big job.

This is where I come in. I'm close to retirement and once that happens I will be able to use my pension to subsidise my lifestyle. This means that for the first time in my life I can do what I want to do instead of what I have to do to make money. Having said that, it will help if I can make some extra cash off this project. To that end, I've added a tip jar. If nothing else, it will prove the concept if I can make some money off this "fool's errand".

[Addendum: since I wrote this, my financial situation has changed and I now actually can use extra money, so I've taken steps to monetize the website. 😞]

I've already gotten lot of really positive feedback on this project and am busy soliciting stories. I'm hoping that I can come out with the first of them some time before the New Year.

Bill Hulet

Publisher, Editor, Webmaster, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer 

of the Guelph Back-Grounder