Creating News Articles

a desktop computer with newspapers

Preparing to Build a News Article

Before building a news article, you should have the following ready: 

  • article title — sentence case, no punctuation (i.e., “The Big Event makes big return to local communities”)
  • description/RSS blurb — sentence case, no punctuation, will be article subheader and RSS blurb (i.e., “Annual giving day can impact every facet of Towson University's vibrant community”)
  • file name (part of the URL so keep it short) — lowercase letters, separate words with hyphen (i.e., “fourth-arbor-day-award”)
  • images/media — crop and upload images  
  • meta data — plan for images needed for display in social media sharing

Prepare Images for Your Article

All images should be uploaded to the “Images” folder in the “News” section, located off the main directory. You need an “–sq” crop (square) to display on the “News” landing page (an RSS feed), and an “–m” crop (medium rectangle) or “–xl” crop (extra-large) for the top image. You will also add images as meta data. If you have a video at the top of your article you will need a video screenshot for the RSS and meta data images. Contact Henry Basta, , for this.

See more guidance on adding images to news articles.

Building a News Article

Follow these steps to build a “Newsroom w/ Categories Article” or a “Featured News Article.”

1

Login and select a news article template.

  • Login to Modern Campus CMS from the “News” landing page.
  • Click on the “Content” drop down menu in the top navigation and select “Pages” to display the “News” directory. You will see a list of files and sub-directory folders. Select the folder for the current year.
  • Click the blue “+New” button to add new content and then choose “Newsroom w/ Categories” or “Featured News Article.”

2

Fill out the following fields.

  • article title
  • description/RSS
  • article/event date
  • category selector (select one or more categories: TU Today Featured Story, Arts and Culture, Research, the college affiliated with the story)
  • filename (filenames should be short, all lowercase, and words should be separated by hyphens)
  • Once you have added the content for all required fields, click “Create.”

NOTE: If the story is planned for the next day’s TU Today email, check the “TU Today Featured Story” box in the category selector. You can also tag a story with any category later in the build process, when you add the article to the RSS feed.

3

Add content to your article. 

  • Add text, images and links to your article. See guidance on adding images.
  • Use subheads to make content scannable.  
  • Use snippets to add visual interest. You can add new regions to a page to incorporate full-width snippets. 
  • Video content can be added in several ways. 
  • Save your content and spell check.
  • Do not publish until you've added the story to the RSS feed. 

4

Add meta data.

Meta data displays when news articles are shared on social media. Follow these steps to add meta data to news articles:

  • Click “Properties” in the upper left corner of the page menu.
  • Next click “Parameters” in the left sub-menu.
  • Under “Custom Settings” add OG and Twitter images.
    • OG Image — this is the -m crop image that will be displayed when shared on Facebook. Only needed on story pages without a top hero image.
    • Twitter Image — this is the -sq crop image that will be displayed when shared on Twitter

Note: Add the full URL for the OG and Twitter images. For example: https://www.towson.edu/news/images/image-m.jpg 

Test the meta data with this social media validator tool:

5

Add article to the RSS feed and publish. 

Follow these steps to add the article to the RSS feed. After the article is added to the RSS feed, you can publish the story. Check pages below to confirm the story is displaying in the feed.

  • The news feed is displayed on the News landing page and high-level pages such as MyTU, About TU and Campus & Community.
  • Stories tagged with the “Research” category appear in a news feed on the Research News page. 
  • Stories tagged with the “Arts and Culture” category appear in a feed on the Arts & Culture News page.
  • Stories tagged with a specific college will appear in the feed on that college’s landing page.