Mark and Delma Tronson from Press Service International (PSI) which is the media ministry wing of Well-Being Australia are regulars at the ARPA conference and are always 'on the hunt' for something fresh and exciting to add to their 'press quiver'.
PSI provides three articles each week day to Christian Today Australia and once published, those daily links are sent to Australia's religious media and once a week to an international feed. The three articles consist of a Comment and Sport article by young writers, and a ministry piece by Mark Tronson himself, along with a weekly Movie Review by Rosie Timmins.
The five Sport writers have a weekly column. The 25 young Comment writers each produce one monthly article so that over a full calender month, Christian Today publishes each week-day a different young Comment writer. These young writers come from Perth in Western Australia to Cairns in north Queensland, Hobart in the south to central Australia's Alice Springs and almost all points in-between. There is even a husband and wife writing team, Daniel and Danielle Stott from Tweed Heads, the north coast of NSW.
The question
A little background. Four months ago, June 2011, PSI held their mini-conference where these young writers came together and on the agenda was a fresh web site developed by sport writer Josh Hinds. On this site, each young writer has their own individualised CV site where their specific articles are archived.
Each day, the process is as follows:
(1) The three articles are published in Christian Today Australia.
(2) PSI proforma document with that day's article links are sent to Australian Christian Media and then, once a week, as an International feed to PSI's extensive global e-data-base.
(3) The article links to Christian Today are lodged into the PSI CV sites.
So, what has changed?
What has changed - gleaned from the recent Australasian Christian Press Association's annual conference ?
Mark Tronson said he was chatting to the editor of the Eureka Street publication over dinner and in the course of the conversation he realised that the PSI web site lacked one vital component.
Something lacking on the PSI site was a page decided to today's published articles, replacing in effect the daily cumbersome PSI proforma document and moreover this new page provides a continuing up-to-date fresh presentation of the young writers articles published in Christian Today.
"This is a giant leap forward," Mark Tronson explained. "This page is now the home page, so that the first time anyone comes to the site, this is what they see, "Latest Articles."
This is now the link that PSI circulates each day to Australian Christian Media and to their International feed. It is all there in one. PSI gives permission to copy these articles and they turn up in all sort of publications around the world.
Press Service International's Mark Tronson invites the reader to check it out. www.pressserviceinternational.org