I am working for a daily newspaper part-time; I have been researching and experimenting with Drupal (and OpenPublish and ProsePoint) in the hopes of being able to convince the corporate office of the media syndicate (on the other side of the country) to consider a different CMS than the one we're currently using.
I would appreciate input, feedback, and experiences from other daily newspapers, especially on the print-to-web experience ... particularly if you are using InDesign and/or NewsEditPro.
Note: I am NOT a programmer or coder; my title is "Editorial Assistant." In my job, I draw upon my experience and training as a graphic designer and as a writer (and occasional editor). I have nearly twenty years of experience in print design and layout (I've worked for this paper off and on for more than ten years); I've also learned (X)HTML and CSS well enough to put together some fairly attractive websites.
And I'm young enough to be comfortable learning new technology (such as Twitter and Facebook, since the newspaper wants to explore using social media) ... but because I'm a primarily visual person, learning code is still very intimidating for me. I recently bought books on PHP and JavaScript, but I've barely had time to do more than glance at a few pages.
So far, I've successfully set up test sites in Drupal, OpenPublish, and ProsePoint, and I am learning my way around -- but I'm particularly curious about how newspapers that still print a daily edition use their Drupal-based websites ... such as working with stories, photos, ads, and classifieds.
Comments
"And I'm young enough to be
"And I'm young enough to be comfortable learning new technology" --- good grief... I was taken aback by that statement. I'm 57 and quite frankly, using more technology than the younger folks I know. And I know plenty of them, given that I am smack in the middle of two university campuses, 10 miles apart, with 20K students in each. Stats actually show more people over 65 using technology than the under 30 set, as they have more time. Me? Today, I'm trying to get our 30-year-old admin assistant to use IM and Skype. That's while I am learning php for another Drupal site.... I make my living on a computer. So, pleeease, none of this "I'm young enough to be comfortable learning new technology...." Should be "I'm old enought to be comfortable..." imho... :-))
I was holding back myself...
... 'cause I had pretty much the same thought.
I'll be turning 51 this week, and I'm making some extra cash from building websites beyond the brochure type. ;-)
Actually I'm analyzing if I jump into it full-time since I have found myself writing some simple code to fix minor customization issues... :-)
And as I tell people half my age: You can't keep on living on a 20 Century mindset, especially when we already seen pass by the 10 percent of the 21st Century... LOL!!!
Warm regards from sunny México!
:-)
Pepe
I am the IT Manager for a
I am the IT Manager for a daily paper in Arizona that recently (October 2009) made the switch to Drupal. We use InDesign and NewsEditPro, both older versions.
If there are any specific questions I can answer for you, please let me know.
Thanks!
I'll have to look to see what version of NewsEditPro we're using; I do know we're using the CS suite (the first CS suite, not CS2 or 3 or 4).
I'm trying to convince the corporate office to consider Drupal (or OpenPublish or ProsePoint; I'm currently working on test sites in all three) as a possible CMS. So I'm trying to anticipate any questions that may come up.
I just found out this afternoon that we have a conference call scheduled for tomorrow at 11 a.m. with one of the VPs in the corporate office -- one of the topics will be CMS, so I'm suddenly on a lot shorter deadline than when I posted my first message here.
I'm not sure what concerns the VP might have, so I'm trying to anticipate and brainstorm possible questions he might bring up.
I definitely wanted to ask about the print-to-web process. Do your stories go first into the print edition and then online? Or do you post stories online throughout the day and keep the print process separate?
If you're using the same stories in print as online, have you come up with a streamlined way to handle that? Or is it copy-and-paste and then reformatting as needed in the Drupal interface?
Do you include photos with the online stories? If so, how do you handle that? Do the photos include photographer credits and cutlines in the online version?
Do you have online classifieds? If so, how does that work?
Do you have any forms on the site that allow users to place classified ads or fill out forms for announcements such as birthdays, weddings, engagements, and anniversaries? (This is something that our newspaper currently wants to do; I've been building the forms in HTML with a small PHP template behind the scenes that controls how the form information is sent in emails, but if we end up using Drupal, I'll need to find a way to transfer all that into Drupal.)
Do users make any payments online (such as for ads or announements)? If so, what payment system are you using? (Our newspaper is considering PayPal at the moment.)
The daily newspaper I work for has a staff of 50-60. That's not editorial staff -- that's everyone, including circulation, the mailroom, the pressmen, advertising, classifieds, business office, etc. I was hired specifically for my technology skills ... and because I've lived in this town for twenty years ... and I've worked for this newspaper before. But I'm not a programmer or a coder; my background is in writing and graphic design, with the occasional foray into photography or videography.
I know any CMS we choose will have a learning curve ... but I'd like to see us choose something that gives us more hands-on ability than we have right now. Our current CMS does have a "back end" ... but it really only allows us to upload stories, photos, or ads. To do more than that, we have to talk with the company that handles the CMS and hosts our site ... and wait for them to get things done ... and I've no idea how much that costs us in additional fees.
I like open-source software; I like the idea of being able to customize not only the front end of the site but also the back-end interface, to add modules and plug-ins as needed, etc.
I just have to figure out how to sell the idea to the corporate office.
Katrina
Site builder, writer, trainer, graphic designer
Print-to-Web
The Cornell Daily Sun uses Quark (though I've heard that all the other Ivies use InDesign). We've been using it for so long that it would make a transition to InDesign hard even if we wanted to make the change.
Our print-to-web workflow is basically copy-and-paste out of Quark. We've done a few things to minimize the extra work required after the copy-and-paste, but that's essentially it. There's probably a better way, but we haven't found one that works for us. The main obstacle besides inertia is that if the print-to-web workflow adds more steps to the workflow or even has that perception, it tends to be a very hard sell. Building a good print-to-web workflow is tricky no matter what CMS you use.
Advertising is a little bit easier, as ads for the website are sold separately from ads in the print edition, since the website obviously looks a little different compared to the print edition.
Hi, We too have a similar
Hi,
We too have a similar process as Mike has mentioned for our Regional papers Deccanchronicle, Mydigitalfc and Andhrabhoomi. They use Quark for the print and copy paste the content on to the web. The copy paste on to Drupal requires a web data operator team (2 nos) with minimum skill set.
In Andhrabhoomi there is an extra workflow as the paper is in the regional language Telugu. They need to convert the content in the Quark files to Unicode format before they paste the same on to the web. We should post a short write on Drupal about our experiences in Andhrabhoomi early next week.
The decision for the copy paste workflow is that even if we purchase a tool to automate the same, there will be work in synchronizing the styles in Quark before we use them + an associated cost for the tool!
The publishing team has a workflow where in the articles are provided to the web operators with tags specified along with the article. We are also trying to make the publishing team understands duplicate content, to ensure that the content that gets updated during the day does not get re-updated from the paper.
Shyamala
Unimity Solutions
short write on Drupal about our experiences in Andhrabhoomi ?
Hi Shyamala,
Did you get a chance to share this writeup?
Sree