Hello everyone,
I’m starting a political blog and needed some advice. It’s going to be focused on engaging youth in politics. There aren’t many political opportunities available to high school students, so I was going to let only high school students contribute articles to the website. It will also feature opinions from both sides of the political spectrum so young people can understand the opinions of the other side.
I need advice on how I should run it. Like how should I market, how often should we post articles, and any other ideas you have.
Thanks
@randomstudent789
No offense, but if you need to ask for ideas on how to run your blog and things like “how often should we post”, you aren’t ready to do a political blog. Until you get some more solid groundwork started, you need to postpone your plans.
1)What is the hosting platform? Are you going to allow people to post by having them email you their articles for you to post? Or is article posting by outside users enabled by the platform?
2)I know there are some people who may be moderates, but straddling the fence with politics if a sure-fire way to go down in flames.
“Understand the opinions of people on the other side”. That most likely won’t happen for a multitude of reasons. We are talking about high school students here. Drama, conflict, and anger are inevitable. If people want a platform to debate, there are already many established platforms out there (and it can be seen from those platforms that political mud-slinging is inevitable).
And how can you tell who is a high schooler? I could be 10 years old or I could be 60, how are you going to tell who is what?
If you ask people to send you ID, that most likely isn’t going to happen (unless they are stupid enough to send ID to random strangers on the internet, in which case their writing probably is not of the best quality either).
My advice for you is to either pick one side of the political spectrum or the other. If you stay in the middle, the only thing that will happen is you get hit from both sides.
I think this is a cool idea. I’ve been working on trying to get my fellow students involved in politics as well.
I disagree that you have to pick a side for the blog. I think you can show both sides as long as you do it in a novel way.
Good luck and I’d love to write a post at some point once it is up and running!
@Larkin29 I wasn’t necessarily saying you have to pick a side. I meant like you could write from whichever side you’d like, but the post would be organized into categories for the right, left, and center so readers could easily choose which side they’d like to read from.
And thank you for the advice also.
@adulting101 That is some good advice, thank you very much.
Also, I have done a lot of searching for political opportunities available to high schoolers but many of them require money to participate. What I meant was opportunities where you’d actually be doing something meaningful, such as an internship. Campaigns are also good opportunities, but those are for short periods of time and only come around once every two years.
@RMNiMiTz I completely disagree. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with asking for advice when needed, in fact, I believe it should be encouraged. Also, I am in high school. I don’t have much experience in journalism or marketing, so how should I know how often I should post articles?
Now I’ll answer a couple of your questions.
“What is the hosting platform? Are you going to allow people to post by having them email you their articles for you to post? Or is article posting by outside users enabled by the platform?”
-I’ll be hosting with WordPress. The platform has a feature that allows me to create accounts for “Contributors.” When a contributor writes an article, it is automatically submitted for review before being published.
“And how can you tell who is a high schooler? I could be 10 years old or I could be 60, how are you going to tell who is what? If you ask people to send you ID, that most likely isn’t going to happen (unless they are stupid enough to send ID to random strangers on the internet, in which case their writing probably is not of the best quality either).”
-No, I will not be asking people to send me their IDs. Most of the people who contribute are going to be people that I know. If students that I don’t know would like to contribute, I’m going to trust that they’re in high school and ask them to provide me with some information before they can become a regular contributor.
Thank you for your advice and concerns. You have given me some ideas about how I should operate it.
I think you miss a vital point, OP. The content matters. Not just getting a byline. If you have kids with limited experiences, how do they add perspective to their writing? How far do you think you can go with the opinions of hs kids? How long will others want to read this?
And every town has some political structure, committees, advocacy groups, news organizations, and more, which offer experiences to the kids with go-get’um. These may be small, no pay, but they enhance a kid’s awareness of the context, drives and process. Writing an article isn’t experience.
Adcoms likely won’t be satisfied that some kid states he wrote an article for a student blog…and then the kid has no real world time spent in the arena, itself.
You’ve got to think this through.
Blogging is not a tip based on the number of views. And you seem to refer to what you’ve written. That’s not my impression of what OP wants to do.
@adulting101 @lookingforward The main reason that I’m starting this is to improve my own writing as well as become more politically literate. Allowing other high school students to contribute would just be another function. Also, in my city at least (which is a pretty decent size), there aren’t many opportunities available to get involved with actual politics. Yes, we have youth committees, but they’re more service oriented rather than government and politics oriented. I have also reached out to the three television stations in my area and the local newspaper about high school opportunities, and all of them said I need to at least have my high school diploma.
@lookingforward I mean, I think it’d be considered a learning experience rather than an employment experience. I believe that students who are actually interested in politics or journalism would contribute on the basis of self-improvement versus bolstering their resume.
I may have to rethink the idea of only allowing high school students to contribute. Many of my friends I’ve mentioned this idea to seem interested in contributing, however. My original intent was to show other people what younger people thought of current events. Maybe I could put a focus on politics in my state? Maybe require that articles present some sort of unique perspective?
@adulting101 @lookingforward Do y’all think that I should make it either right wing or left wing, rather than showing the views of both sides?
^ Look at what A101 said about involvement. It’s good.
"I just join in with the adults. Going to city council meetings might be a good start to get to know other locals involved. Find out about lobby days for your state government. Just walk into the party office of whatever party or issue oriented organization you identify with and say, “Here I am. I’m ready to work.”
You say there are no opps, but A101 is showing how a certain energy works. Imo, it comes from how he/she thinks. Now, he may be talking, in part, about blog material, staying current, having some sort of entree or access, over time (eg, to speak with the players.) But the bottom line is, he got himself into the milieu.
OP, I think you have to figure how you will vet for quality. That’s much more important than whether left or right or both. Imo, much more important than jut giving kids a shot at writing’something.’ What will make this a worthy effort, draw an audience, as A101 said?
@randomstudent789
You still haven’t really addressed how it is viable (trying to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum). I tried that once and all that happened to me was I got hit from both sides.
For example (to use a very recent example), I stated: “Trump has a temporary ban on immigration from certain Islamic countries”.
All those lefties start coming at me talking about how “oh, but it will become permanent”, or “you’re just excusing racism”. Meanwhile, the people on the right start coming at me with “but it’s not Islamic because the majority of the Islamic nations are not banned”, or “why are you such a cuck”.
You might think being in the middle of politics somehow allows you to mediate between the two sides, but that’s the farthest from reality, it only leaves you open to attack from both sides.
You need to find an audience because trying to appeal to both sides means you will appeal to nobody.
@RMNiMiTz I do believe that you’re correct about how having a section for both sides is not a good idea, I just disagreed with you when you stated that I probably wasn’t ready for a blog when I asked how often I should post.
But I think I’m going to take my idea and make it just a conservative blog, with other conservative high schoolers contributing to it.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks