What’s New with Political Writing?
Today, political content marketing is all about the issues, and with our divided nation, there are a lot of them. You should never find yourself with a shortage of topics to write on regarding political content. The key is finding where the best sources are for both liberal and conservative news, and how to tell so-called “fake news” from the real thing. Understand that both sides of any issue will embellish a piece of content writing in order to give their side the advantage and make the other side look bad. Finding the middle ground is where the truth usually exists. You will get your best political writing insights by looking into the real stories behind the published issues.
So, where are the best sites to go for liberal and conservative news? As far as liberal sites go, you really can’t go wrong with Alternet.org. It is a long-established liberal news website, and its journalism standards are top notch. It has been around for years and is trusted in most news circles, even conservative ones. They report on issues that are of concern to the political left, and they do take some sharp swipes at the right. The writing is not totally unbiased, but the facts reported on the site can be verified as true in almost every instance.
The Christian Science Monitor is the conservative’s answer to Alternet. Like it’s left-leaning counterpart, it takes real issues that are of concern to conservatives and reports on them in an appropriate way. While the articles there may speak poorly of liberals and the liberal side of issues, the facts presented can be verified, and this makes the publication a trusted one, both in its online and print versions. It has been reporting conservative news for a long time, and it will likely be around for a long time to come.
Balancing Your Liberal and Conservative News to Get to the Truth of an Issue
Both Alternet and the Christian Science Monitor are excellent sources for liberal and conservative news. If you want to hire political writers who are well-versed on the issues that are the most important to both sides of the political spectrum in this country, these are the sites you should send them to in order to do research. However, they are only part of the story, because these two sources lean heavily in either direction. To verify facts presented in their work, and to get a more moderate view of any issue, there are a number of trusted middle-ground news sources you can use for balance.
Some of the most balanced, centrist news sources include staples like:
- The Washington Post
- The Wall Street Journal
- BBC News
- USA Today
- The Atlantic
- Foreign Affairs
- CNN
- NBC
- CBS
- ABC
Always balance your articles on liberal and conservative issues with the moderate, centrist views of some of these other sources to get the real picture of what is going on. Political readers want to know the truth of a matter, and they will be quick to point it out if you report a false fact or do any embellishing to make one side look artificially good or bad to the audience. If you are unsure of whether any given fact is true, verify it. This can be done by finding video of an actual event, looking at different moderate sources to confirm a fact is being reported consistently everywhere, and looking on respected fact-checking sites like Snopes.com. When it comes to political writing tips, the most important ones are to always report the truth, and to always verify that what you are reporting is true.
Today’s political readers are savvy; you can’t fool them, so don’t try. Once you lose their respect, it is a challenging task to get it back. It is best to keep it from the beginning by proving yourself to be a trustworthy, unbiased source.
Political Content Marketing News
It won’t do any good to report on the most important issues of the day in the most truthful way possible if no one is reading what you write. That is why knowing how to market your political content is so essential to making it in this industry. You need a presence on as many different social media sites as possible, and interlinking your social media posts is a good idea to get more traffic. Always have a way for people who find you on social media to get back to your actual website as well. If they like what you are posting, you want them to bookmark your main page, so they can come back to it easily.
Using SEO is also important, though perhaps not as important as it was a decade ago. You should use some basic keywords in your writing that highlight the issues you are discussing. However, use these keywords sparingly: once in the title of the article for the main keyword, and no more than once or twice in the rest of the article for the other keywords is best. (You can use the main keyword up to three times in a 1,000 word article before it starts to look like keyword stuffing to the search engines.) You might also use an appropriate image with a keyword in the caption or hyperlink attached to the image. Keep your SEO simple, and it will be effective.
You should also give your readers something dynamic they can use. It keeps them interested and coming back for more. For example, if there is an upcoming vote in Congress on an issue, give them a way to let their representatives know their opinions before the vote. Providing a link to something like the ResistBot, which automatically sends faxes via text to someone’s representative, and is a free service, is something your readers will appreciate. Even something simple, like a phone number to the White House switchboard, or a link to how to register to vote online, makes a nice touch. Your readers will notice you care about their political participation and will thank you for it with repeated visits, referrals to friends and family, and more traffic for you.
About the author
Stephanie V has been a professional writer for nearly 14 years. During this time, she has written for online and print magazines, newspapers, business blogs, and retail websites. She has also written content for many professional newsletters, white papers, promotional books, and email advertising campaigns for a variety of companies all over the world. She specializes in SEO, web content writing, corporate newsletters, magazine and newspaper articles with both entertainment and hard news content, academic writing of all kinds, and human interest stories for any type of publication.