NEWS COVERAGE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
PREAMBLE
Our responsibility as the Communication Unit is to provide professional communication support to realise the CPUT’s objectives and to help position the institution as “Africa’s leading Smart University of Technology”. Our theme is “Creating One Smart CPUT”.
MISSION
We commit ourselves to using our skills, creativity, knowledge and resources to create an attractive, reader-friendly, interesting read for the university’s community, customers, industry, the public sector, media, other higher education institutions and international community.
OBJECTIVE
- To inform the campus community of the latest developments at CPUT
- To establish a feeling of community among staff members
- To communicate managerial decisions that affect employees directly
- To support the transformation and integration processes at CPUT
FREQUENCY
News stories on the homepage will be updated twice on weekdays while the electronic newsletter will be published monthly.
LANGUAGE
All news stories will be published in English only.
NEWS COVERAGE AREAS
- Institutional research (web)
- Staff and student successes (web)
- Major institutional events (web)
- Academic news (web or Bulletin)
- Campus and Faculty news (Bulletin)
- Community research (web)
- Staff news (Bulletin)
- Major sport news (Bulletin and web)
- Any information that affects staff (Bulletin)
- Alumni news
INFORMATION COLLECTION
Information to be collected by means of:
- Emails to secretaries/staff members to call for stories and event information
- Phone calls
- By invitation
- Attending official CPUT events
- Interviews
- Information supplied by staff
PHOTOGRAPHS
- Photographs taken by the communication team are only for the use of MCD in its marketing and communication initiatives. If other departments need photographs for other purposes, MCD will provide them with contact details of an external photographer upon request.
- Photographs for publication purposes are generally taken by the communication team, but photographs taken by other CPUT staff, students and stakeholders may be used, should the picture quality be suitable for publication.
- It is suggested that freelance photographers are organised for photographic services, especially if the target audience is also the external media.
- A Seven working days’ notice is required when departments require the communications team to cover events for publication purposes.
REQUESTS FOR COVERAGE
- Should coverage be required, staff members may contact any member of the communication team and will be directed to the designated communication officer who deals with the faculty or department in question
- This request should be made, at the latest, seven days before the event, interview, exhibition or activity that requires coverage. No last-minute requests will be entertained.
- Invites need to explicitly indicate the date, exact starting time, venue and details of the event’s final programme.
- Coverage afforded to any department or person will be at the sole discretion of the communication team.
- The communication team is not obliged to send stories to interviewees for approval.
- To protect CPUT’s Editorial Integrity, it is the sole responsibility of MCD to package and publish any articles or photos in the manner we deem fit and departments and/or faculties cannot dictate to us as to how and when should MCD publish the content we gather from them.
- All e-mailed interview questions should be responded to within five working days.
- We do not republish copy or articles from external sources, unless we have written permission from the publication.
STYLE GUIDE
All elements that regulate how content is published are summarised in the style guide. These elements dictate the writing style, font, colours, language use, applicable word limits and photo formats.
COPYRIGHT
All articles and photos published on MCD’s publication platforms are the property of the university and should not be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the communication team.
All articles used by the communication team that are sourced from another publication must contain an acknowledgement of the source.
DISCLAIMER:
The Communication Office strives to deliver accurate reporting and interesting stories but cannot be held responsible for inaccurate information supplied to us by Faculties or Departments and Units.
If interviewees fail to arrive for a scheduled interview, they forfeit the opportunity and risk not having the article published.