Many Missouri Press members are familiar with the Capitol Report that is written by Missouri School of Journalism students and distributed during the legislative session for newspapers to publish.
A new widget for your website, developed in partnership between the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the Missouri School of Journalism, will collect Capitol Report articles in one place and rotate them on a regular basis, giving readers access to the most up-to-date stories.
Utilizing the widget on your website will depend on your content management system but should be as easy as placing a “block” for raw HTML, then copy-pasting the necessary code there. If this sounds confusing to you, Missouri Press staff will be happy to assist in any way we can.
With the widget live on your website, when a reader clicks on a story a separate window will open to display the story they selected, as well as others in the gallery. The best part about the widget is when a reader is done with a story in it, simply exiting the window that opened will take them back to the newspaper’s website.
To test the widget yourself, visit mopress.com and scroll down to near the bottom of the front page. The section titled, “State Government News” is how the widget will look and operate on your website.
The goal is to get newspaper websites on board with hosting the widget by the time J-school students begin reporting on the 2021 legislative session.
If a newspaper does not want to host the widget or is unable to host the widget, Capitol Report stories will still be distributed via email as they become available.
As more newspapers adopt the widget, Missouri Press Service plans to sell sponsored content or other ads into the widget. Revenue generated from this advertising will be shared with the MPA member hosting the widget and the provider of the stories.
To learn more about the widget and how your newspaper can use it, please contact Matthew Barba at mbarba@mopress.com or Mark Maassen at mmaassen@mopress.com
