Columbia Community Connection was established in 2020 as a local, honest and digital news source providing meaningful stories and articles. CCC News’ primary goal is to inform and elevate all the residents and businesses of the Mid-Columbia Region. A rising tide lifts all boats, hop in!
Get the word out.
Press release options that spark community conversations.
CCCNews is your local news source for the Mid-Columbia Region. We publish and pay for original content from local content creators to economically empower our community. Whether you’re an out of work journalist, meteorologist, a retired school teacher, a tradesman, history buff, master gardener, poet, pastor, photographer, astrologer, or comic book illustrator—if you’re a part of our local community and have an interest in freelance content creation, we want to hear from YOU.
Read our content submission guidelines to learn more about what kind of work we’re doing, what kind of content we accept, and learn about our payment structure.
Content should be original, as in written by the author and not plagiarized from another source. CCC News can republish previously published works, such as blog posts, stories, and articles submitted to other publications as long as the author holds the permissions or permissions for republishing have been otherwise granted.
Submissions should be locally focused on Mid-Columbia Region and our neighbors. CCC News is a local news source that reports on local and regional news in Oregon and Washington, we will sometimes cover national news or neighboring state news in a local piece for the purpose of providing a "big picture" context but our focus is on local journalism and local impact. Local news covers a range of topics including: Local Events, Local Government Agencies, Local Services, Local Business News, Local Good Deeds, Local Health & Safety, Local Public Art, etc.
Submissions should also reflect CCC News dedication to providing honest local reporting that: holds up a mirror that reflects us back to ourselves so that our communities can see how our communities and the world works, holds officials accountable to the truth, spreads positive forward thinking, supports our communities growth, and brings our communities closer together.
Why is Local News so important?
Local news and the freedom of the press is a key pillar in supporting a free democracy. Much of Oregon is considered a local news desert. Counties with only one or fewer local newspapers or online news publications are considered Local 'News Deserts’. Oregon has two counties without a newspaper and 15 counties that have only a single newspaper. Local News 'Deserts' have been linked with increased reliance on national press sources. This reliance has increased lack of understanding of how to participate in local government and politics, and lead to an increase in radicalized, extremist and polarized political opinions in the US. By choosing to be locally focused, we choose to be part of the solution. We choose to stand for building community, community growth, local economic development, freedom of the press, freedom of information, and togetherness.
CCC News is dedicated to providing honest, local, inclusive and equitable reporting that celebrates diversity and promotes equity in our communities. CCC News reserves the right not to publish any content which promotes bias, discrimination, oppression, violence, fear, or hate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, physical or mental ability or immigration status.
News stories should be factual, present a full picture of the truth, avoid alarmist writing style, and involve solutions minded reporting.
What is solutions minded reporting?
Solutions Minded Reporting seeks to identify people in our communities who are working to find solutions to public problems and include their voices in the conversation. Too often when something is scary or controversial the problem is presented to us in the news without including any information about what we can do about it or including information about what is being done every day—by potentially dozens of people in our communities—to fix those problems. Over time this alarmist and non-solutions minded reporting style can lead to increased fear, depression, and a negative self image in our communities. By using a solutions minded reporting style we start to develop more trust in the work of our neighbors, increase positivity in our community, help develop a more complete understanding of how our community works and educate the community about how, when, and where we can all participate in making our community a better, healthier, happier place.
We accept writing that falls into the realm of non-news, such as art, commentary and opinion pieces such as reviews, columns, essays, poetry, letters to the editor, etc. These pieces should be openly presented as such and be labeled as: OPINION, REVIEW, ESSAY etc. Opinion pieces are not typically compensated.
We accept pieces as short as one paragraph and as long as is reasonably able to load on a single webpage. News articles should follow a news article style format, but reviews, essays, columnists, arts and culture writing etc have a greater degree of style flexibility. If you’re writing such a piece then you have an opportunity to find your writing voice and experiment with style.
When posting longer articles, please include the word count of your article in your submission.
Need more specifics? Check out this article for examples of ways to write a press release.
Pictures and images enhance your story. Submitting at least one sharing image with your writing is nesseesary. Photos should have granted permissions from the photographer(s) and people identified in the photo(s). Images should not display inappropriate content such as the glorification of hate symbols.
Submissions should also include the author’s full name, an author bio of 20 words and a photo of the author. A good author bio is short, sweet, and explains qualifications and interests. Take a look around our site for examples.
CCC News wants to lift up and financially empower content creators and writers in the community. CCC News offers monetary compensation for community submissions as a way to lift up local journalists, freelance writers and the larger community.
To receive payment for your submission, your submission must meet CCC News guidelines and provide some kind of benefit to the community.
In other words, it can't just be self-promotion. If you are interested in writing a self-promotion story for yourself or your business, please check out our Advertising and Sponsored Content/Press Releases Page.
Compensation Model
Breaking News - $100/story
Hard News Stories -$75/article
Positive News Stories. $75/article
Feature News Stories - $75/article
Photo Journalism - $10.00 per picture and paragraph
Comics and Illustrated Content - $50 - $100 per comic
All content must be approved by the editor, once ongoing relationships with writers are established, more flexibility and less approval is typically required.
Some submitted content, such as letters to the editor, are ineligible for this compensation. Standard word/payment limits can be exceeded with prior approval. Articles may exceed word limit and still receive maximum payout. Payouts based on words published. Editors may cut and edit pieces at CCC News’ discretion. Contractors & payments paid on 1099’s.
Pictured: Tom Peterson, Robbie Denning and Cole Goodwin
Submit your content to news@columbiacommunityconnection.com.
Once you submit your content for review, CCC News will contact you within a few days with feedback.
If CCC News decides to publish your content you will receive feedback, information about any necessary edits, and/or changes and CCC News will collect payment information from you.
If CCC News decides not to publish your content you will be notified. CCC News withholds the right of refusal not to publish submitted content.
We look forward to seeing and or reading your submissions!
Yes.
We’re here to tell and share important stories from you, our community. If you’ve got a hot lead on a story but don’t want to report on it yourself then you are welcome to send it our way. Not every lead in results in a news story however—so if you really want to make sure the information gets out there, you can always sponsor the story/content and hire us to write for you!
Yes.
If you have information about something important that’s happening in our communities but want to remain anonymous send us a message you can call or email us with that information at any time. But be sure to state in your communications that you are submitting an ANONYMOUS TIP/COMMENT in order to protect your safety and identity.
If you have a question about your specific idea, your finished content, need help figuring out how to include solutions based reporting in your article, or some other more in depth question-please do not hesitate to contact us. We are happy to help and discuss further with you.
Yes, you can. The more the media is shared the better. Simply copy and paste the link to your story and hit share!
Please send opinion related pieces to “Letter to the editor” or add your writing to our forum, you can find the button for those below, in the sites footer and menu.
