Click here for: Editorial Policy: Print and Electronic Media plus Content Guidelines


 
Editorial Policy: Print and Electronic Media plus Content Guidelines
PUBLICATIONS GUIDELINE
 
ELECTRONIC MEDIA - This Website:
 

This website is aimed at being a "live" notice board rather than being a discussion forum.
 
In addition, it is not designed to be an online shop for the payment of fees. It showcases the membership fee options and it showcases suppliers specials on offer  - it also is a home for members that wish to place classified adverts.  This said, on the website you will find the banking details for your use to submit payment by EFT and you will find the form to update your information and attach proof of payment.
 
 
There is a huge need in our sport to keep an active conversation going and to this end we fully support www.microlighters.co.za for this purpose. We have listed on the home page alternative forums and in addition we encourage you to join www.freetoadventure.com where you will find a blog devoted to the sharing of video footage. These forums are not designed to host live conversations. They are "notice boards" and "information filing cabinets."  On phpbb blogs such as the microlighters forum as conversations multiply so too the threads that offer information rather than discussion migrate to obscurity not because they are not appreciated but because they are matters that need noting versus conversation.
 
To summarise: Our blog section thus should be seen to be a notice board - where you are actively encouraged to add a response and or your point of view. We want you to share your view on aviation matters by responding on our blog but if you wish to chat to someone - please use the microlighters forum - it is a fantastic site. We have designed this site to provide access to information that we hope you will, where merited, debate on the forums then return here so as to offer "well chewed" perspectives for posting on this information "Notice Board."

This website also has full bulk eMail and bulk SMS functionality.  Over three hundred members have not registered eMail addresses with us. Please submit an online information update on the AERO CLUB INFO UPDATE form.  As we get more eMail addresses we will be able to use email as a channel to keep you up to date on your information requirements.
 
To email an info update please:

 
We would appreciate your ideas for website content inclusion and encourage you to send us content for consideration to nemo@webo.co.za  To this address please also send stories, video footage and photos. You can also post to The Editor at P O Box 746, Cramerview, 2060.

PRINT MEDIA: Microflight Africa

Content submission is accepted for consideration, without restriction, from all sources. Being a membership magazine we do not pay for stories. Member's stories and microlight and light sport airplane stories are preferred. International contributions are encouraged as are stories about any aviation related activity. If it is about people with their feet off the ground we will consider the story! Yes, we have no superstitions about publishing or not publishing any form of flying - even if it is on a swing!
 
Your Microlight and Light Sport Aeroplane magazine needs your stories. We have set a target for each member submitting one story every four years. Yes, you can do this. 1 story every four years. I is however a fact that the magazine is carried by a few scribes that give of their time to keep the magazine rich in content. So, if you cannot meet the target of one story every four years please support the scribes and make recommendations for scribes in your area.
You need not read the rest if you do not wish to be a scribe but know this - a camera with a good resolution capability and a paragraph can, by us, be turned into an awesome story. We are a membership magazine and as such we let your personality shine through. We do not embark on rigorous editing - we let you be you!
 
The following Contributors’ Guidelines are offered so as to help scribes with their journalistic creativity!
 
Our target dates are a quarter in advance so as to allow for editing but more importantly it allows the editor time to solicit content to make up for content shortages. The target date for your submissions for each magazine is:
    ◦    1 October for the Xmas Edition
    ◦    1 February for the Easter Edition
    ◦    1 April for the Winter Edition
    ◦    1 July for the Spring Edition
 
DVD - Flying African Skies :  1 February
 
Contributors will earn recognition awards and prizes will be awarded as and when these are available ( usually every mag has a prize that is awarded by the luck of the draw rather than on the basis of journalistic excellence. The reason for this is that as a membership magazine we wish to hear your story in your words so relax and just tell it like you see it).
Various types of articles have appeal.
 
Just in case you missed it? > Please email your contributions to >  nemo@webo.co.za
The following examples are offered for discussion and are not meant to be an exhaustive  listing of all the possibilities:
 
1. Personal Experiences, Accounts of Fun Times and Fly-aways
These stories normally take the form of a write up of a particular flight, a fly-away or a fly-about that is a ‘Flying Adventure’ that the author is prepared to share. These stories have appeal when they are both anecdotal and factual. They can be unusual flights, an experience with a particular aircraft or a good/ bad aviation experience. Details of the flying as well of personalities and descriptions are what make such articles work well. Above all remember the pictures make for a great story.
 
Often we are faced with low resolution pictures and have to agonise about using them. We have used very bad pictures eg the National Champs a couple of years ago is an example where the quality would not have passed a professional magazines quality standards but Eish… we know that we had no professional photographer in Ladysmith and we had some new faces as winners, so mmm… we made an exception but generally the Editor will not use bad photos with stories.
Stories that follow the plot of we flew for A to B had coffee and refueled. Then C to D had tea and refueled. The flew back from D to C and refueled etc  will get the "chop" if not supported by pictures. These stories with pictures can be awesome but without pictures they really do not inspire many of the readership.
 
2. Researched articles on aeroplanes, other products, training tips, technical matters, competition suggestions etc
These articles normally involve the writer researching the subject. For instance, an article about an element of aircraft technology or a product used by pilots. Training, technical reports, maintenance tips etc also fall into this category. Please stick to subjects you know well and fully understand. Where appropriate pictures should be included but be certain to offer links to websites where more information can be obtained.
 
When you have a huge amount of material to share,  consider making the magazine story an “Executive Summary” with the detail being provided to us for publication on the website. In this way we cover the “story” in the magazine and then offer as many pages as you like of detail on the website.
 
As a general rule we do not support serial stories unless they are factual topical matters that do not require a dependance upon the last story in the series. Serial "novels" are great for a daily newspaper, weekly or even monthly mag but waiting three months for the next exciting installment is too long for most to remember the thread left in the last chapter of your book!
 
3. School Reviews, Personality Profiles, New MPL’s etc
These stories are about people. Please include pictures of them. Not far away pictures – close up pictures that do not look like “Tombstone” images. In addition please send us pictures for our personality profile gallery. We would love to have galleries for each club, province etc on this website.
 
4. Photo submissions and the photo competition
Please send us as many pictures as you like. High resolution pictures may be used for print and low resolution pictures can be used in electronic media.  Please include a story with the pictures. All pictures received may be posted to http://community.webshots.com/user/alanmack777   From the pictures posted, a selection may be published in the magazine and in addition they may be used on the aviation hub which is a soon to be established as a "yellow pages" dedicated to aviation in South Africa. Submission of any content is on the express understanding that this usage is authorized as is any other usage approved by the Editor.  Photo competition entries may be used for the purpose of supporting a story entered for the advert competition or for the support of any other story or content of the magazine. Photo competition entries may be viewed at http://community.webshots.com/user/alanmack777. Photo competition entry prizes, if any, shall be at the sole discretion of the Editor.  Should any submission not carry the authorization necessitated for the above purposes then any restriction required must be detailed in the content submission. Generally we do not accredit photographers in the magazine or other publications as the photographer is normally associated in the magazine. If you want the photographer or anyone in the photo to get a special mention - then please say so. Any photo published on the editor's photo website
http://community.webshots.com/user/alanmack777 has the facility to enable a story to be added to the photo that can include any accreditation desired. If you wish to do this you are encouraged to do so and in addition you may wish to add many more pictures that cannot be accommodated on the website.
 
5. General Guidance
Microflight Africa is a picture storybook. It is not an academic journal. It is a membership magazine so it can be less formal.
 
Microflight Africa is intended to be an entertaining and amusing read, as well as conveying facts and opinions. We are dealing with our readers’ leisure time, not their business. We enjoy wit but are less keen on reams of figures and bald statements. As noted above, endless stories that start with an early rise, coffee, then preflight, then flew to A then to B then to C etc without pictures do not make good reading (however, shortlists or tables of figures make good side panels).
 
We have one rule on Style – Don’t hesitate to “be yourself”.
If you feel that you need coaching on professional writing style then the best guide to style is a good read of stories published in African Pilot, Today’s Pilot and or Flyer etc. We don’t suggest that one style suits all, nor that you should copy any one contributor’s style – just that you should develop a feel for the kind of writing that is fun and entertaining. South African “slang” can be great and then again it can be disastrous – feel your way with it.
 
Another way is to send bullet points and pictures to the Editor well in advance of the deadline and we will write the story. The idea and the pictures are the difficult part, not the write up. So, relax and send content early, that is, if you are nervous about your writing ability.
 
  • Do not be deterred from submitting stories in Afrikaans we welcome contributions in both languages and only tend to publish more English language stories as this is what we get.
  • Wherever possible, try to extract dry facts and figures and put them into a summary table. The figures may be essential to the article but they are best removed from the text.
  • Make the point of the article known early in the story, preferably the first paragraph.
  • Stick to the subject.
  • Be ruthless and realistic when deciding whether the subject is a:
  • News story (50 to max 500 words) – Remember the Pictures.
A short article for a one page feature (300 words max 1,000 words) – Remember the Pictures.
A major feature (around 500 to 1,500 words over two pages) – Remember the Pictures.
  • This said, if you use Microsoft Word, Mac Pages etc use an arial 11 point font and allow space for the photographs, headings etc you will have a good idea of the extent to which you can load a page with content.
  • The guiding criterion is “How many people will read this?” You can be sure that if you’re not ruthless and realistic, the editor will be (that applies to any publication).
6. Input
Content is best supplied electronically, preferably by e-mail, as a text file. If you’re worried about a table losing its formatting, for instance, send a hard copy by fax or mail as well. Sending large files normally works. Do not worry about file sizes – the Editor has a large enough mailbox. Awards for story or other content submitted, if any, shall be at the sole discretion of the Editor.
The magazine is produced using the Adobe Creative Suite of programs. So, if you have Adobe InDesign and you wish to supply us with an Adobe InDesign file, please feel free to spoil us. This is however not necessary as few people have this package. We would be happy to receive Apple MacBook files such as a Pages file, MacWord or PC files such as Microsoft Office Word or Publisher etc.  We would also be happy to receive the text by way of an email. If you have no email access then fax us your story to 086 680 8093 and post your pictures to P O Box 746, Cramerview 2060.
Remember that no matter what format you choose to send us the text in, you must also send us the pictures in as high a resolution as possible.
 
7. Deadlines
If you agree to write an article, submit it within the deadline that has been set for each issue.  If you are not going to make the deadline please let the Editor know well in advance.
 
8. Layout
When you write try to think about how the article will appear on the page. If it is a very long story, then it’s useful to have one, two or more short pieces of text or ‘sidebars’ that can be used around the pictures that you supply. Try it. Think of making up your story as commentary to the pictures.  These could explain a particular point covered in the main story, or contain a summary of facts and figures. Remember, Microflight Africa is a picture storybook.
 
9. Photo Competitions, How Many Photos and Photo Quality
Photos are essential to the magazine and – within reason – Ha Ha! > we have received over 1,500 pictures for a story and we published them all at  http://community.webshots.com/user/alanmack777   -  see the Mozambique albums they are worth a visit -  the more we have to choose from the better.
 
Remember that accreditation is a self help scheme - if you want to add picture stories or just your name - contact the editor and he will allow you to go add your detail to each published picture on the photo site.
 
If you are contributing a fly-away story make sure all aspects are covered, from the big picture – landscapes and approaches – to details, including close-ups. It’s not all about how you got there: don’t forget to show people and places – think ‘National Geographic’ and you will have an idea of the ideal coverage! Images must be of the highest possible quality: shoot at maximum resolution if you are using a digital camera – do not economise by attempting to get as many digital pictures on one card as possible. Please provide full caption details with any images, and make sure we can match captions with images. This means that we need the names of the people in the pictures.
High quality digital images are preferred, the size at 300 dpi being a good idea of the normal maximum reproduction size on the printed page (at their highest quality JPEG setting, 6 to 8 MB cameras generally produce images that can be run full page). Remember that the photos make or break an article.
 
The Editor shall not be awarded any photo competion prize and his decision on the award of any prize is final.
 
10. Cover Picture
The Editor will decide upon the cover picture. Members are encouraged to submit pictures to nemo@webo.co.za  that they would like to be considered. The Editor has a guideline policy of alternating between a trike and a 3 Axis plane on the cover and always does prefer in inclusion of people. Please remember that portrait ( hold the camera sideways) images are best for full page use.
 
11. Stories from Suppliers, Adverts and “Dual Purpose” Stories from Suppliers
Our audience, being the pilots that fly microlight and light sport planes, represents a target market that many suppliers are interested in. We do not share membership lists for promotional purposes and we do not run stories that are clearly adverts or advertorials. This said, the editor works with suppliers in getting product information to pilots and welcomes and encourages stories about a suppliers product or service that covers the joy and or the recommendation of named MISASA members. As most of you know we also consider inserts and have successfully inserted stickers, CD’s and even a cap into the magazine envelope. This is a sensitive issue and the Editor tries to obtain product reviews from a member as a second opinion/recommendation of the products advertised in the magazine. We see our adverts as being sources of useful information, we will support advertisers whom we support by charging advertising rates that hardly cover the cost of printing the page. Thus we seek to promote mutually beneficial relationships rather than drive a cold commercial policy.
 
12. Copyright
Unless otherwise agreed with the editor, the Editor of Microflight Africa retains worldwide rights to your words and pictures. You too, retain equal rights. What this means is that the Editor can use the content that you submit for brochures, websites etc at his sole discretion and you too can do so with the same content. Thus if you want to use your advert and or story in the magazine in another publication you do not need our permission.
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