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News Story

New to Working with News Stories?

• If your site does not yet have a folder for news stories, you will first need to create a News Listing.
• See an example of a Cascade news story and an example of a news story listing page.
• You can borrow Cascade news stories from other folders across your school's Site into your news folder. Learn how to work with Borrowed (News) Stories.
• You can borrow news stories from news.wm.edu into your news folder. Learn how to work with Borrowed news.wm.edu Stories.

Creating a News Story

Step 1: Prepare Your Images

1. (optional) Prepare and upload a thumbnail image which will display on your listing page. If you do not have a photo available, you will be able to select one from the Thumbnail Library while building the story. 
2. (optional) Add a photoset to your news story. You can build your photoset before you begin, or create one and add it later. See an example and learn how to build your photoset.
3. (optional) Prepare and upload a Social Media Thumbnail image.

Step 2: Build the News Story Page

1. Navigate to and select your news folder.
2. From the top menu, choose Add Content >> News Story
3. Complete the Title, Summary and Author fields.
4. Set the right column, parent and sibling checkboxes. These adjust the right column and page menu for this page only.
5. Select a Publication Date. If you do not want a time of day displayed leave the default time as 12:00 a.m.
6. Enter the content of your story in the WYSIWYG editor.
   
   • Do not copy and paste directly from another source (Word, email, webpage). First copy from the source, then in the Cascade editor click Edit >> Paste as Text before you paste. You can also clean up your text by first pasting it into a text editor such as Textpad or Notepad.

7. In the Thumbnail Images section, choose Select from Thumbnail Library or Use a custom thumbnail.

   • If you do not have a high quality thumbnail image for the story you are working on, you can select one from our provided Thumbnail Library by choosing Select from Thumbnail Library. In the Thumbnail Library dropdown menu, select the pre-cropped image that best fits the content of the story. Preview the Thumbnail Library image choices.
   • If you do have a thumbnail image of your own for the story you are working on, select Use a custom thumbnail. Click Choose File to find the 600 x 400 pixel image you have already prepared and uploaded to Cascade during Step 1.
8. Preview Draft. Then Submit >> Check Content & Submit.
9. Publish your news folder.

Step 3. (optional) Add Media Links

1. Prepare your media (build your gallery or upload your document). Tip: for documents, the Display Name field will display as the media link text at the top of the News Story.
2. Edit the page.
3. Scroll down to find the Other Media >> Media section.
4. Use the dropdown to select the 'Media Type'.
5. Click either Choose File or Choose Page to browse to and select the media to be linked.
6. Save & Preview. Then Submit >> Check Content & Submit.
7. Publish your news folder.

Step 4: (optional) Additional Elements for Your Story 

1. Use the Photoset section to add a photoset to the top of your page.
2. Add a Social Media Thumbnail image to help highlight your story when it's shared on social media platforms.
3. Add Related Links or other features to the right column to direct readers to other items of interest.
4. Embed a YouTube video within the content area, or create a YouTube widget to place in the right-hand column.

Step 5: (optional) Adjust the Order of News Stories on Your Department Homepage

• If your department homepage uses a News Listing row, that row's settings will be set to display in Folder Order or Date Order. If you have selected Folder Order for your row, change the folder order of your stories to designate the display order in your row.
• If your department homepage displays new stories at the bottom of the center column in the main content area, change the folder order of your stories to designate the display order — set the desired homepage stories as 1 and 2 (and 3 or 4 if your department displays that many stories on its homepage).
• If your department homepage does not automatically display news stories, you will first need to contact your Cascade Web Manager to activate this feature.

Resolving Potential Problems

The top banner image is repeating on the page in an endless loop.

Edit your story or feature and make sure that in the Photoset field you selected a photoset file, not the current page.

My page has a weird shaded rectangle just under my story by-line and date...

It sounds like you have selected a 'Media Type' from the Other Media area dropdown, but have not selected the media to be referenced. You can either:

1. change the dropdown to 'None', and the shaded box will go away, or
2. use Choose File or Choose Page under the dropdown to select the media to be linked; this will add the proper media icon and link within the shaded box.