News Decoder publishes student stories alongside those of experienced journalists. It has a global readership and school partners all around the world, so it’s the opportunity for your story to reach even more readers.

News Decoder is a professional news site and, as opposed to Mobile Stories, you will receive guidance and support from an editor when you submit your work. You learned what it takes to make a quality news story on Mobile Stories, but the News Decoder editor will provide you with individual help and attention to make your story great. As all journalists, you will have to fulfill the editor's requests to meet professional standards and get your story published.

There are four steps authors take to get published on News Decoder: Pitch, Report, Draft and Revise. 

Step 1: Pitch

Any journalistic story starts with a pitch. In a pitch, you describe the core idea of your story in 50–100 words. You should include your story’s core idea, identify opposing viewpoints, outline a reporting strategy, and set a realistic deadline for a first draft. This part should not take you too long as you have already done a lot of work! Feel free to describe the article as it is now. You can also include your ideas for more interviews or other ways you’d like to keep working to improve your story. Add a link to your full article on Mobile Stories.

You can pitch using this form. Fill in your teacher's name and email address so that we can include your school in our communications. You can also ask your teacher to send us a message at info@news-decoder.com to introduce us to all the students in their class who might be interested in perfecting their articles and getting them published. The teacher will need to include the students’ names and email addresses, as well as a link or a Word document to their stories.

A News Decoder editor will then get back to you with feedback and advice on the next steps to take with your work. Don’t worry if you receive a lot of notes. Even the best journalists are asked to make changes.

Step 2: Report

After receiving feedback from the editor, you will start working on improving your story. Often this will mean doing some additional reporting.

Reporting means getting out of your head, off your phone, and out of your house to talk to people. To make your story unique, you need to break new ground. The best ways to do this are interviews with recognised experts or people affected by the subject you're covering, and finding original data collected by experts. You might have found great sources online that explain the topic well, but you need to find ways to add something new to the conversation or bringing a new angle (a way to approach a topic).

News Decoder specialises in publishing stories that are globally relevant and the editor might suggest improvements to make your work fit its editorial policy. This does not mean that you need to add information about the situation all over the world. However, you should try to find stories that are interesting for people outside of your community, even if you are reporting from a small town.

Step 3: Draft

Drafting means turning all the information you’ve gathered into a story. You will use the guidance from the editor to retell the story as suggested.

When you are crafting your story, some of the key things to consider are: Who is your audience? How can you explain the context to someone unfamiliar with what you are describing?

It’s also important to keep it simple. A simple structure, simple explanations, and simple sentences work best. You can always embellish later. Watch this video by News Decoder’s editor Marcy Burstiner for tips on writing a compelling story. 

Step 4: Revise

The final step is to work with the editor again to prepare the story for publishing.Revising is a team effort. Working with an editor will make your piece stronger and help to address gaps or increase the clarity of your storytelling.

The editor is there to help you. They know the audience. It’s the audience that counts, not the author or even the publication. It's important to accept feedback gracefully, make revisions  quickly, and meet deadlines. Watch this video on collaborating with an editor successfully.

If you’ve followed all these steps, your story will be published and entered in a News Decoder storytelling contest where the best student reporters win prizes.

If you would like to learn more about News Decoder and be inspired by their news coverage, visit news-decoder.com.