Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

If you are involved with a fundraiser or non-profit event this spring in Monroe County, Mich., such as a bake sale, Easter egg hunt, spaghetti dinner, car wash, musical program or educational speaker, NOW is the time to get your event notices sent to The Monroe Evening News.

You can fax them to 734-242-0937; e-mail them to paula@monroenews.com; mail or drop them off at our downtown Monroe office, 20 W. First St., Monroe MI 48161; or go through the MonroeTalks calendar submission page. All event notices in Monroe County should arrive at the newsroom at least a week before the event or reservation deadline, those that take place elsewhere in the region but are of interest to a local audience should arrive at least two weeks before the event or reservation deadline.

I’m one of the reporters who gets all those notices scheduled in the print edition of The Monroe Evening News and placed on the MonroeTalks calendar. There’s a lot we can do to help promote your non-profit event at no charge if the newsroom has your notice in a timely manner.

We get all events set up for the Community Page, Classroom Page, Now Showing Lists or Church Page as appropriate. Some of them show up in the County Roundup on Tuesday. Some of them show up in the Scoop calendar or the Month Ahead calendar. Some of them are spun off into our specialty publications such as Monroe County Parent and Thrive magazines. And as much as possible goes into the MonroeTalks calendar, which is a searchable database.

But if you are contacting the newspaper on a Thursday afternoon for an event that happens on Sunday …  the remaining options are very limited. Even if I can get it in the paper, it may not go in the spot where your potential customers and guests would most likely notice it.

In addition, the three to four weeks just before Easter is a traditionally an extremely busy time in the community.

So I’m hoping those of you who are involved in a fundraiser or special event this spring will send the details to me ASAP. It doesn’t matter how far in advance I have the notice on file – as long as the details you are sending are confirmed and correct, I’ll get the announcement scheduled in the newspaper on the most appropriate date and make it available for any other possible listings.

I would rather have my folder full of press releases for events that are six weeks away than to tell  another customer, “I’m sorry, but there’s very little I can do to promote your event that happens two days from now.”