Managing Flow in the New Newsroom
Steve McNally
With TrueSlant.com, we set out to build a new newsroom.
Our team brings a mix of newspaper, magazine, television and book publishing to the table in addition to collective decades of online experience. A shared driver in building True/Slant is our wish to bring some of the best-practices learned working in those media to the immediacy and community of blogging.
The Editorial team recruits Contributors with a vision of the news – a Slant. These credible and knowledgeable Contributors – hundreds of journalists, authors, professionals and academics with topic-specific expertise – blog under their own names, are working to build their own brands, and are trusted to make their own editorial decisions. Editors then curate the stream of stories coming through: slotting them in where they fit best, featuring the larger trends, and promoting stories across and outside of TrueSlant.com. Our Founder & CEO Lewis DVorkin calls this “Editing Talent” rather than Content.
Building on WordPress MU gave us simple, powerful tools for Contributors; extending MU helps us provide frictionless publishing and promotion across a network of quality content, helps community members find what’s relevant, helps our Contributors build audience, and helps our Editors create a lively site with minimal effort.
We’ll cover the enhancements and curation tools that help keep TrueSlant.com a vibrant, growing network with a limited editorial staff. We’ll discuss the thinking and technology behind the Content Management methodologies and tools in use. We’ll walk through the ways Editors manage content flow to create the home page, Topics, and promotional opportunities throughout and the site.
