News

News uses stories about people, programs, research and partnerships as a vehicle to highlight Extension’s broader mission, impact and expertise. News is time-bound and focuses on what’s new, noteworthy or timely (think seasonally or larger news trends).

Extension’s news feed is not for event listings, internal announcements or promotional copy. Instead, stories must clearly answer why the work matters, who benefits and how it connects to larger issues facing Arizona communities.

Submit story ideas to the marketing and communications team.

News stories should adhere to the AP Stylebook and university’s Written Style Guide to maintain consistency in tone and style no matter who writes the story.

Extension editorial staff will work with authors to edit for style, structure and clarity. The goal of these edits is to keep the story aligned with university and communications industry standards and best practices, not change its meaning.

Title/headline – Use sentence case, meaning capitalize only the first word and proper nouns, treating the rest like a normal sentence.

Date of publication – Date the article is published and available to the public.

Byline – List primary author(s) using name followed by affiliation. For example, “By Brad Poole, Cooperative Extension”. Include a name and county only (i.e. NAME, Cochise County Cooperative Extension) without job titles.

Subheading – Expands on the article title by answering key questions like who, why or so what. Keep to 10-25 words, and use complete sentences. For example:

• Headline: Extension supports water-smart farming across southern Arizona

• Subheading: New research and outreach help producers adapt to drought and long-term water uncertainty.

Featured image – Use a high-resolution image (1920 pixel width) with people/activities mentioned in the article. Avoid stock photography when possible, but if you use it include the source information in the image name (i.e. Cotton_field_Adobe_35487362564.jpg). Images must have descriptive alt text for accessibility and follow images guidelines outlined on page 11 of the Quickstart Best Practices Guide.

Summary – Use the same text as the subheading. This text is used to display a short summary of the article that people see as it appears at different locations on the Extension website.

Link to external news – Used for aggregating news from other university sites relevant to Cooperative Extension. Connect with the marketing and communications team before featuring any external news.

Keep language simple and concise, generally on a middle school reading level.

• Write in active voice: “Scientists did the research,” not “The research was done by scientists.”

• Don’t use adjectives, unless they are attributed to a source. “The big dog jumped over the short fence” gives a less complete picture than “The great Dane leaped over the 3-foot fence.”

• Write in third person. “Program staff will be at the fair Saturday,” not “We will be at the fair Saturday.” Work labeled as opinion is an exception.

• Job titles: Capitalize job titles only before names (Cooperative Extension Director Ed Martin) but not after names or when there is no name (Ed Martin, Cooperative Extension director, leads the organization, or The Cooperative Extension director leads the organization).

Extra page elements – these are often skipped in news articles.

News tags – different tags are available depending on where the news article needs to appear on the website.

• Blog – Used for articles with more targeted relevance, like to a specific county or program. Most contributor articles will fall under blog.

• Strategic Positioning – Used for articles that specifically highlight Extension’s strategic pillars.

• Blank – News article appears on overall Extension news feed, along with views for location, subtopic and program. Marketing and communications team holds curation responsibilities for overall news feed.

Contacts – List primary contact for the program or initiative or someone from the marketing and communications team.

Enterprise attributes – These can be left blank.

Adding Location, Program, Topic and Subtopic fields ensures news stories appear on filtered calendars throughout the site. View the full list of tags (updated 3/5/2025).

• Location – Enter the county or tribal offices (no limit to number selected) mentioned in the story, deliver related programing, etc.

• Programs - Enter the program name (no limit to number selected) that is running the event. The event will appear on any program page selected.

• Topics - Used to filter stories into broad Extension priorities. View the full list of tags.

• Subtopics - Directs news stories to show up on topic-specific pages that aggregate educational materials, resources, events and news around central themes. View the full list of tags.

Manages who can view the news story when visiting the Extension website.

• Published – Current version of the news story is “live” and can be viewed by anyone visiting Extension’s website.

• Draft – Once a story is published, allows edits and changes to be made without them going live until moving the current state to published. Changes are saved but not made to the live article

• Unpublished – News story is not viewable those visiting the Extension website. Only those with editing privileges can see the content