Orato.com is an award-winning citizen news website featuring eyewitness, first-person stories from around the world. There are two ways to become an Orato.com correspondent:

Pitch Your Story—Orato.com pays for compelling first-person stories. Run your idea past our editors and get commissioned.

Self-Publish Your Story—Everyone has a story to tell. Self-publish yours anytime.

Not sure what’s right for you? Read our Guidelines, below.

Pitching Your Story To Orato.com
Orato.com pays for true, timely stories written through the eyes of those who were “there.” If you have a personal connection to an event that’s breaking headlines or an extraordinary event that begs a global audience, send your true first person, eyewitness story idea to Orato Pitch.

Self-Publishing Your Story On Orato.com
Whether or not our editors choose to purchase your story, you are welcome to publish it on our site. As long your story isn’t libelous, plagiarized, fabricated, or offensive, it has a home on Orato.com (read our Terms Of Use for more information). Post your story now!

Writing An Orato.com Story
As an Orato.com citizen correspondent, you tell your own story—or help others tell theirs—in a first-person voice. You will write "I witnessed," "I lived this" or "as told to" pieces. You will craft stories with a beginning, middle, and end, using only the subject's or your own words. Unlike in traditional journalism, where "I" is a bad word and subjectivity is suspect, Orato.com’s goal is to find the "I" and the personal perspective behind the news. Your story should have a heartbeat.

What Is “News”?
News is information that is interesting, relevant and useful to your audience. It's an invaluable public service. It's people sharing their stories.

News is current. What's going on around you right now? Breaking news always fulfills the need for currency, but it's not the only kind of news Orato.com looks for. You may be able to add information or context to a news story that's relevant to today’s audience because of your own personal experience, which may not itself be recent.

News is meaningful. If an event or experience means something to you, chances are other people will be interested in it, too.

If your idea meets these criteria, you've got news!

Writing Tips
We all know that writing is easier said than done, and it's hard to offer practical suggestions for this intuitive craft.

Here are a few words of advice:

• - Write simply.
• - As much as possible, use everyday words, and try to keep your sentences short, preferably with one thought per sentence.
• - If you write more than 1,500 words, you may lose your audience’s attention.

Check your facts, because accuracy is the key to Orato.com's (and your story’s) credibility. We take credibility seriously; if content is found to be false or a copyright infringement, Orato.com will remove it and ban the writer from the site.

“As Told To” Stories
If you are writing an "as told to" piece, your subject must be aware that you are transcribing your conversations and that you will be writing stories in his/her own words. We require writers to send us contact information (address, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses if possible) for the subjects of “as told to” stories.

What We Do
Orato.com’s editors read everything that is published on our site, whether it was commissioned or self-published. We do often make small changes to self-published stories, catching spelling or factual errors, adding illustrations, and making headlines catchier or more likely to be picked up by search engines.

If there are bigger changes we would like to make, we will contact you. You always have the final say in how your story appears on our site. If you don’t like a change we’ve made, let us know. We’re happy to work with you to find a solution you’re happy with.

Once we’ve read the stories, those that most impress us get promoted—on our homepage, in our Editor’s Picks list, and on the landing pages for each of our categories. We don’t care whether it’s commissioned or self-published. If it’s compelling, we’ll make sure people know it’s there.

Orato.com’s Promise
You will always hold the final editorial authority over your story. If we can’t come to a an agreement over the editing of a story, we will never publish it without your consent.

Beyond Writing
Don't fancy yourself a writer? Orato.com has a number of multi-media platforms to choose from: audio, video and photo essay slideshows. Writers are also responsible for providing original photographs, videos, and audio clips to accompany their stories.

Photographs should be 640 x 480 pixels, with a resolution of 72 dpi.

Audio must be in MP3 format.

Video from most cell phones, digital cameras and camcorders can be uploaded. Read more here.

Sample Stories
If you're still unsure what an Orato.com story looks like, check out some of our sample stories, below. These are some of the best of the best that Orato.com has showcased—real people with extraordinary stories.

- One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: 9/11, Iraq And Northern New York
- Back To School At Virginia Tech
- 18 Years On Death Row
- I Escaped Scientology
- Operation Buzzed: 171 Starbucks In One Day
- Hurricane Katrina: Big Broken Drive By
- Bug Chasing: The Shocking Quest To Become HIV-Positive
- I'm A Rock-N-Roll Realtor
- Unassisted Childbirth: Beyond The Fear
- Even A Hollywood Gossip Queen Has Her Line
- A Toilet Tale of True Love: My Life In Shambles
- I Was Kicked Out Of The Air Force For Posing Nude In Playboy
- Corey Haim: Lost Boy Found
- Deep Breaths
- Gordie Johnson: Travel And Rambling In Austin
- Deconstructing Achewood
- My Brother Loved Anna Nicole
- Gimme More Britney!
- I Am The Luckiest Man In The World
- Piece Of My Womanhood
- Owen Wilson: After The Laughter
- Was Beckham Worth The Money?
- Rescuing Maasai Girls From Circumcision
- I'm A Pin Up
- Is 28 Too Late?
- Real Life Little Miss Sunshine
- The Truth About Sharks
- Holocaust Historian David Irving Released From Prison
- The Bridge: Looking Into The Abyss
- I Believe In The Right To Bear Firearms Despite Virginia Tech Tragedy
- Oscar-Nominated Jesus Camp's Leading Lady Speaks Out
- The Prince Of Pot Prepares For Battle
- My Journey Through Bi-Polar Motherhood
- It's Short Person, Not Shortie
- Seal Hunting Is My Life
- Tao Of The Naked Cowboy
- David Suzuki: If I Were Prime Minister
- My Son Was Executed
- The Executioner's Story
- Watermelon's Bust
- Real Life Magnum PI
- Photo Essay: Canada's Poorest Postal Code
- The Shame And Sham Of Senator Larry E. Craig
- John Sinclair: Two Joints, 20 Years And Life
- I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk
- Melissa Smith: Who Says The Girl Next Door Isn't Sexy?
- I'm An Exotic Animal Broker
- Global Warming: The Cold Hard Facts?
- The Rachel Files
- Hitchhiking 50 State Capitals In 50 Days
- Children Of Men
- Lived To Use And Used To Live
- Hard Road and Healing
- Learning To Hear The World: I Heard My Own Voice For The First Time In 42 Years