READERS AND NEWSHAWKS NOTE! WEB: ONLY ITEMS

After approval by the MAP Board of Directors and some testing, we are
pleased to announce a change in the criteria policies for the news service
which will allow some items, clearly identified in the title/subject line
as Web: that come from selected websites.

THE AGREED UPON GUIDELINES ARE:

(1) That the sources be only popular, respected general news type online
magazines/websites.

(2) That the sources either either allow LTEs or have a discussion forum.

(3) That items that have been well covered by the print media not be used
unless they add something significant.

Both newshawks and editors are asked to follow the guidelines for these web
only items strictly.

At this point we have validated the following sources. They can serve as
examples of the criteria we expect:

MAP Media Directory: Web

Source: SALON.COM
Website: http://www.salon.com/
Feedback: http://www.salon.com/contact/letters/
Address: 22 4th Street, 16th Floor San Francisco, CA 94103
Email: salon@salonmagazine.com
Location: United States
Forum: http://tabletalk.salon.com/
Fax: (415) 645-9204
-------------------------------------------------
Source: BBC NEWS
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Feedback: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/
Forum: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/
Location: United Kingdom
- ----------------------------------------------------
Source: APBNEWS
Website: http://www.apbnews.com/
Feedback: http://www.apbnews.com/company/contact.html
Address: 65 Broadway 17th Floor New York, NY 10006
Forum: http://www.apbnews.com/talkaboutit/
Location: New York
- ----------------------------------------------------
Source: NEWS WATCH
Website: http://www.newswatch.org/
Feedback: http://www.newswatch.org/submit%20letters.htm
Email: tbutterworth@newswatch.org
Location: United States
- ----------------------------------------------------
Source: MOJO WIRE
Website: http://mojones.com/
Address: 731 Market Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94103
Email: mojowire@motherjones.com
Location: United States
Fax: (415) 665-6696
- ----------------------------------------------------

As the guidelines above state, we are looking for the stories that cover
new ground. The Dan Forbes stories about the ONDCP payola flap which broke
on Salon.com are a good example.

Examples of items that may not be appropriate are the ones from the BBC
website which simply rehash the current news and editorials from the
British press, without adding anything new.

This policy is similar to how we handle wire service items. If they have
been already well covered in the press, we do not post them. If it is the
first time the story has been covered when we receive it, we post it as it
serves as a 'heads up' not only for our readers, but also for newshawks who
we hope will find the story in print for us.

We will be updating our basic newshawking criteria at
http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm to reflect this change in criteria.

Newshawks and Editors! We Can Not Possibly Thank You Enough For All That
You Do! This change is a reflection of your recommendations. We may not
change quickly at MAP, but we do make changes as appropriate. With your
help we have created the world's largest drug policy reform website, and
the most popular!

Richard Lake
Sr. Editor

p.s. The editors at MAP have asked me to ask all of the newshawks for a
little help. Most of you are very good about making the subject line of
your email message to editor@mapinc.org the headline of the news item. But
some do not. Please understand that our entire roboeditor software system
that works to prevent duplicate postings and share the workload among the
editors depends on the message subject line being the item headline. When
the message subject line does not match the headline, the editors at MAP
must search our archives or message the other editors about a possible
duplicate, causing a significant slowdown in their posting efforts. And,
yes, when we editors, as volunteers, are behind on our queue's of items to
post, the item may just be deleted.