What would January 1st be without grand proclamations and resolutions? I find that as New Year's Day presents itself every year, I tend to renew the pledges of the previous year that fell somewhat short, or maybe petered out about mid-February. Not so, this year! This year, I add a few new resolutions related to editing and perhaps you will join me.

1. Lead Horses to Water - Evangelize the glory of editing Topix pages to my buddies. You know you have that friend that talks endlessly about some obscure topic. I bet you also know that chances are, we have a news page for that topic. We also add pages all the time. For instance, I'm queuing up a page for Bigfoot and I have just the friend to bamboozle into editing it. Who do *you* know?

2. Drink Up! - Promote at least one new story on every page I edit EVERY DAY. I edit a few random pages, so this is tricky, but entirely doable. We do have the vast knowledge bank of the internet at our fingertips, right? There are also some fun rumblings afoot for cool bling for editor profiles for those really active editors - more on that later.

3. Raise the Bar - When I peruse our edited news pages, the standouts are obvious, and always more compelling. Editors that make use of the less standard tools, like promoting forum topics to the news pages or seeking out and adding photos to all of their stories create the most impressive pages. They've thrown down the gauntlet and I accept the challenge. Let's show them we have the stuff.

4. Original Content - Let's pledge to write original stories. ( You see how I'm roping you all into my resolutions? ) There are some great editors that do this routinely. If you can't find the news, make the news! If you are out and living in your community, you are seeing news happen all the time. Put cursor to page and let 'er rip.

5. Editor Love - You guys are awesome. We're working on ways to increase your access to us and boost interactivity between editors themselves and between editors and Topix staff. This one is front burner. Expect an announcement soon on implementation of the first of many changes in that direction.

With that, let's hear from those of you coming on board for these resolutions or making some of your own.

On to '08!

Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. It is a sentence written on every classroom blackboard as a first step to a logic curriculum. It sounds simple enough, right? What does this have to do with editing on Topix?

It is about relevancy. This is a crucial point for the bigger news pages, as well as the smaller, local pages.

For the top news pages, like US News or World News, it is important to be able to step back and consider the big picture when editing. There is a virtual ton of content available in the Topix wire and elsewhere for those pages, but that presents as much of a challenge as a trickling wire does for smaller pages. The task at hand with a wire overflowing with potential stories, is developing a keen eye for plucking the stories from the wire that are the best choices for the page.

Certainly all news that happens in the US does not qualify as US News. I mean, I just had an awesome ham and swiss sandwich for lunch here at Topix Headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, but no one in the next room, much less the next state really cares or needs to know that. That would fall under the rectangle category. What we want here are squares, stories that have national importance and national impact. The results of the New Hampshire primary...that's a square. A change in policy in Iraq....square-city. Congress passes a bill to eliminate income tax...that would be a BIG OL' SQUARE. The key here is to consider the reach of the article. If the news affects life on a national scale, it is US News.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, we have thriving local communities all over the U.S. With as many news pages as we have, editors have the opportunity to get very niche-y in the pages they choose to edit and the content that they place on those pages. What is sometimes difficult, is keeping those very granular pages very granular. I'll give you an example.

Let's say you are editing the news page for a small town called Palmer, Massachusetts. (Incidentally, I'm picking a random town that has no editor. ) How do you cover the news?

Is a generic article about the war in Iraq relevant? Probably not, but an article highlighting a local angle is certainly on target. Maybe write a short piece about a couple of local Marines like this.

What makes Topix great is the ability to be *truly* local. Smaller towns that are traditionally overlooked by more traditional news media have really found a home here. Our job, as editors for those smaller localities is to bring those people what they can't get anywhere else, local news that matters to them.

Thought for the day - Go for the squares.

It's a big world out there and we all inhabit our own little corner of it. In this world, events of a larger scale happen all around us, and many of them happen on a predictable timeline. The Oscars happen around the same time every year, as does Valentine's Day, Superbowl Sunday, Mother's Day, 4th of July, etc, etc, etc. These events are scheduled. We know they are coming. News outlets do more than report straight news, they keep and follow an editorial calendar covering these types of events.

Here's the thing. I love lists. Give me a list and I immediately feel more structured and more productive. Not only do I *feel* more productive. BY GUM, I AM MORE PRODUCTIVE. Editorial calendars serve the same purpose for me, and they might for you.

Try creating your own editorial calendar, so you can attack your news-making duties by staying one step ahead. Knowing and planning for the events that are upcoming nationally, gives you the ability to find that story that brings an angle relevant to your own news page. Remember our chat about Squares vs. Rectangles? Relevancy is king, but that doesn't mean you are left out of issues of a grand scale. It only means, you need to find the angle that brings that issue home.

National holidays and events are pretty much universal. Put them on your calendar! If you are editing a local page, you probably know of local events that happen at the same time every year, maybe the big annual football game between the two local rivals, the Fireman's Chili Cook-off, Veteran's Day parade. You know your town best., and you know what makes your town unique. If your news page is topic driven, rather than location based, you can still work the angles. How does Valentine's Day relate to Science / Tech or Recipes? You know there is a way. I know you can find it.

I'm going to be throwing out some editorial challenges in the upcoming days, throwing down a gauntlet, if you will. I'll post some glimpses into my own editorial calendar and you guys can take up the challenge to work it. In fact, this Sunday is Superbowl Sunday. How about working an angle for your newspage and linking us up in the comments?