Guidelines for Submissions to CBCNews.ca

Tell us your story, be a part of the news team. CBC.ca wants you to participate in online comments, video uploads and photo submissions.

COMMENTS

What kind of comments are suitable for CBC.ca?

We want your perspective. Probe, analyze, inform. Challenge, advocate, debate. Inspire, entertain, enjoy. Your contributions make our website and on-air programming richer, the conversations more lively and diverse.

What is and isn’t acceptable?

• Please keep your submissions relevant to the topic.
• Be civil.
• When you are writing about legal issues, remember that people are innocent until proven guilty (that may mean using words such as "allegedly").
• Feel free to link internally within the CBC.ca site as many times as you would like. As for external web addresses, we allow three links per post.

Always avoid:

• Lengthy excerpts from other posts. We want to hear your own opinion.
• Racist, sexist and offensive language.
• Personal attacks and defamatory statements.
• Breaking copyright rules (that includes copying and pasting excerpts from other sites without permission and attribution).
• Violating someone’s privacy.
• Threats or suggesting committing a criminal act.
• Insensitive comments regarding the death or injury of private individuals, especially children.
• Posting your message in all CAPS (this makes it difficult to read and in online speak is considered yelling).
• Posting press releases and commercial promotions.

If you violate any of these rules, then your comment will not be posted and your account may be suspended.

How do I comment?

Comments are solicited at the bottom of most news stories, blogs and other CBC content. In most cases, you need to log in or create an account before commenting. You can create an account in our Member Centre.

What about including personal information in comments?

Your username, which links to your CBC profile, will appear with your comment, and we may use your real name and city from your profile if we use your submission in our news coverage. If sharing more about yourself is relevant, go ahead.

However, we do ask that you don’t include personal information in comments, such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses. You can update your profile and username at any time. Any updates will be retroactive and be associated with all your comments made previously.

How are comments moderated?

Most comments to CBCNews.ca are pre-moderated. That means that we read them before they are published to make sure they adhere to our guidelines. We will do our best to get them up promptly. We won’t edit your comments but to ensure that your comment is posted, we do ask that you follow these rules to create a thriving conversation.

In cases where comments are post-moderated across CBC.ca, the comments will go up immediately and we review them after they are published.

In cases where comments are semi-moderated across CBC.ca, the comments will go up immediately and may be removed if they violate our submission guidelines.

What if I see a comment I don’t like?

If you think a comment violates our guidelines, that’s your opportunity to respond. If you feel someone has broken the guidelines, click on the "Report Abuse" link found at the bottom of every message and indicate the problem. We’ll investigate.

How will you use my submissions?

Your submissions may be published on various parts of CBC.ca, and may even be included in our stories. They may also be used on CBC radio or television.

We reserve the right to identify you by name and city of residence when using your submissions (i.e. John Doe from Toronto says…).

By submitting your content, you grant us the non-exclusive right to use your content royalty-free.

PHOTOS and VIDEOS

What kinds of photos and videos are suitable for CBC.ca?

We want your engaging photos and videos that capture breaking news and/or compelling stories. In addition, we regularly solicit photos and videos on various topics.

What is and isn't acceptable?

The material must be created and owned by you, including any music and artwork.

Always avoid:

• Pornography or sexually explicit content.
• Anything illegal.
• Hate speech.
• Threats, harassment.

In addition, all applicable COMMENT guidelines (above) also apply to videos & photos.

How do I upload videos and photos?

You can upload video on our Video Submit Page and photos on our Photo Submit Page. You can also find file size and details there, for example, we suggest sending the maximum size for photos and the cap is no more than 100MB for videos.

How will you use my submissions?

CBC will post submissions but cannot guarantee that every contribution will be published. We may also edit the submissions for length, size or clarity.

We reserve the right to identify you by name and city of residence when using your submissions (i.e. John Doe from Vancouver says…).

By submitting your content, you grant us the non-exclusive right to use your content royalty-free. For more information, see full Terms of Use.

More information

The above rules are a summary of our guidelines. For more details, read the CBC’s official Submissions Policy.

We look forward to receiving your comments, photos and videos.