Write for The Monument Independent

The Monument Independent is looking for people in the Tri-Lakes who want to help report it. You do not need a journalism degree or a stack of published clips. You need to be reliable, curious, and willing to check things twice. This page sets out what we need, what we ask of contributors, and how to put yourself forward.

One person cannot be in three rooms on the same Tuesday. The Monument Town Council, the Lewis-Palmer School District 38 board, the Palmer Lake trustees and the El Paso County commissioners all meet on their own schedules, and the decisions that shape this place get made whether or not anyone is there to write them down. That is the gap contributors fill.

We Cover Issues, Not Agendas

The word independent in the masthead does real work. The Monument Independent is nonpartisan: no party label, no endorsements, no side in anyone’s campaign. We report on politics constantly — councils, school boards, commissioners, ballot measures and the people who run for those seats — and we do it on the record, the vote and the consequence rather than the party or the personality. Everything published here works that way, including whatever you write.

For a contributor that means writing what a decision does and who it affects rather than which side it helps, and applying the same scrutiny to everyone regardless of where they sit. You are entitled to your own politics — we would be faintly worried about a reporter who had none — but they stay out of the copy. Opinion is the one place an argument belongs, labeled so readers can tell the difference, and even there a column may take a position on an issue without campaigning for a party or a candidate. If you hold party office, work on a campaign, or are running for something yourself, tell us at the start and we will point you at a beat your involvement does not touch.

What We Need Most

Four kinds of help would change what this paper can cover. Take on one, or propose something we have not thought of.

• Meeting reporters. Sit through a town council, school board, planning commission or special district meeting and write up what happened. This is the single biggest gap, and it is the most learnable job on the list — the agenda tells you what is coming, the packet tells you what is at stake, and we will show you how to read both.
• Beat and feature writers. Recurring coverage of a subject you already follow — schools, local business, growth and land use, sports and the outdoors, or Tri-Lakes history. One-off features are welcome too, particularly from people who know a subject from the inside.
• Photographers. Original photography of events, meetings, high school sports and the Divide itself. Good local photographs are scarce, and a story with one reaches many more people than a story without.
• Columnists and student contributors. Recurring signed columns run in Opinion and argue a point of view, which is a different job from reporting; we keep that line visible to readers. High school and college students who want real clips and real editing are welcome, and we will work at the pace your schedule allows.

How It Works

Start with a note, not a finished article. Tell us what you want to cover and we will agree the scope, the length and the deadline before you begin, so nobody spends a weekend on something that was never going to run. Deadlines are agreed, not imposed — a contributor who covers one meeting a month is more useful to readers than one who promises four and delivers none.

We hand over what we already hold. Agendas, packets, minutes, budgets, recorded votes and records we have obtained through open-records requests are yours to work from, along with the BoardWatch voting record. Then we edit — properly, with questions, and sometimes with a request to go back and confirm something. Your work publishes under your own name, and we agree in writing beforehand what happens to it, including whether you can republish it elsewhere.

The Terms

Contributing is unpaid at present. We would rather say that here than in the fourth email of an otherwise promising correspondence. The Monument Independent is a small, reader-supported Colorado LLC with no chain, no fund and no endowment behind it — the masthead and the accounts department are the same desk, and there is no budget being kept from you. Every dollar that comes in goes to keeping the paper running and free to read. If reader support grows enough to fund paid assignments, the people already doing the work will be first in line.

What a contributor does get is a byline on a real publication, an editor who reads the draft closely enough to ask awkward questions about paragraph nine, published work to show anyone who asks, and the documents and access that make the reporting possible. For a student, that is a portfolio. For a resident who has followed an issue for a decade, it is the difference between knowing something and having it on the record. It will not cover a mortgage. It will still be findable long after the Facebook thread about the same meeting has scrolled out of sight.

Standards We Ask You to Meet

Everything we publish is held to the same standard, whoever wrote it. Our full Editorial Policy is the long version; these are the parts that matter most on day one.

• Build from primary sources and name them. Minutes, staff reports, budgets, recorded votes and public records — not another outlet’s summary of them. Every reported feature ends with the sources behind it, so keep a list as you go.
• We verify before we publish. Expect an editor to ask how you know something, and expect to be sent back for a document or a second confirmation. Anything we cannot confirm comes out of the piece.
• Give people a chance to respond. Anyone criticized or accused of wrongdoing gets a genuine opportunity to answer before publication, and their answer runs.
• Disclose conflicts up front. Tell us if you serve on a board, work for an organization we cover, are running for office, or have a family or financial stake in an outcome. A conflict usually means a different assignment, not a closed door — an undisclosed one is what damages the paper.
• Photographs must be yours to give us. Send only images you shot or have clear permission to publish, and take particular care with minors and with people in distress.
• The reporting and the words must be your own. Software can help you transcribe a recording or search a document; it cannot do the reporting, and we do not publish machine-written text as though a person reported it.
• Corrections are routine, not shameful. When something is wrong we fix it promptly and say what changed, on the Corrections page and on the story.

How to Get in Touch

Email the editor. A few sentences is enough to start a conversation — there is no application form and no deadline.

We read everything that reaches the newsroom. If a story is a better fit for a letter or a listing than for an assignment, we will say so and point you to the right place.

Other Ways to Take Part

Not everyone wants to file a story, and there is plenty of paper to go around. Send a letter to the editor, an event or an announcement through Submit. Pass along something we should be looking into through Contact & News Tips. Add a gathering to the Community Calendar. Or support the paper, which is what pays for the reporting that is already here.

The Monument Independent is published by Monument Independent LLC, a Colorado limited liability company.