Each issue of Green Pages will draw content from among the following categories:
- News: Timely reporting on electoral activities, including summary information and targeted coverage of campaigns of particular interest to Greens around the country; internal proceedings of the GPUS Coordinating Committee, Steering Committee and standing committees; state Green Party activities; international Green Party activities; Green participation in larger coalition efforts; and other news of particular interest to party members and supporters
- Features: In-depth objective coverage of broader issues and themes of particular relevance to the current state of the party at the time of publication, i.e. electoral reform issues, the experiences of Greens holding elected office or Green participation in activist movements
- Data: Lists, diagrams and charts representing information useful to Greens including but not limited to election results, Greens holding elected office, contact information for state Green parties, ballot access and voter registration updates and financial information from the national party
- Analysis: Disinterested commentary by qualified writers dissecting in depth particular campaigns or other pressing issues, a greater understanding of which the Editorial Board deems will greatly benefit the party (all analysis must either appear on a marked Opinion page or prominently display a consistently recognizable “Analysis” logo)
- Reviews: Overviews and evaluations of books and other publications directly concerning the Green Party (all reviews must appear on a marked Opinion page or prominently display a consistently recognizable “Review” logo)
- Opinions: Argumentative articles taking a position on a particular issue affecting the direction of the Green Party, advocating the party’s adoption of particular positions or using personal experiences to provoke thought in readers, including letters to the editor (all opinions must appear on a marked Opinion page or prominently display a consistently recognizable “Commentary” logo)
- Editorials: Green Pages will not publish signed or unsigned pieces labeled “editorial” if they are intended to represent the opinion of one or all members of the editorial board. The use of the label “editorial” will be restricted to reflect official positions of GP-US, and will require approval by the editorial board, at least three Steering Committee members, and one Platform Committee member. There should be a consensus of support from the editorial board and Steering and Platform Committees prior to publication. The Media Committee may be consulted for input during this process.
- Creative Work: Editorial cartoons, drawings and creative writing concerning issues of relevance to the Green Party and/or a Green/progressive perspective on current events (all creative work must appear on a marked Opinion page)
Green Pages shall maintain a high journalistic standard. Green Pages will be of a quality so as to be journalistically credible to the average non-Green Party reader. Articles must be well researched, well written, relevant and timely. Fact checking and substantiation of claims are the responsibility of the writers. Opinion articles are not exempt from these expectations; broad statements of general opinion with no grounding in facts and objective observations are of no use in a professional-quality newspaper.
News and feature articles must not include personal observations, should not be written in a propagandistic style, should not use first- or second-person constructions and must present a balanced perspective on issues that are matters of dispute within the Green Party. Writers are under no obligation to give equal weight to the points of view of people who do not support the Green Party generally, although doing so may be useful in some circumstances. As a general rule, news and feature writers must approach their writing in a manner that presents an appearance of objectivity within a contextual common understanding of general support for the Green Party.
When the number of opinion pieces or letters to the editor submitted exceeds the space budgeted for such material, members of the Editorial Board shall rank the submitted materials in order of preference for publication on the basis of criteria of relevance, timeliness, research quality, writing quality and diversity. The editor shall select pieces for inclusion on the basis of these rankings. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit opinion pieces for length, writing style and clarity, and when substantive changes are made, writers must be given the opportunity to review the changes and approve or reject publication of edited versions.
In all sections of the paper, including photographs, the Editorial Board shall strive for balanced representation of the diversity of Greens on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age and disability, including coverage of issues of particular importance to underrepresented groups along the above lines.
Contributors will retain copyright over their work with an understanding that the Editorial Board, representing the GPUS, is licensing it for a one-time publication rights as part of the issue of Green Pages in question.
Green Pages retains nonexclusive rights to publish submissions in other official GP-US publications, such as the Green Pages’ website, the Green Line e-newsletter, or other outreach materials, unless the contributor states that the contribution may only be published in the traditional paper version of Green Pages (or any other publications).
The contributor retains copyright and may republish the work elsewhere; in this case, the contributor is asked to include this statement: “This [article/review/photograph/etc] was originally published in [the issue/year] edition of Green Pages, the national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States.” If work has been published previously, it is the responsibility of the contributor to make sure that he or she retains copyright and are at liberty to resubmit the work to Green Pages.