What is the lifecycle of a news story?
From cradle to grave, the lifecycle of a news story is different for every news organisation. With the onset of digital platforms, 'convergence fatigue' is setting in as journalists become exhausted by the constant repackaging of news stories for liveblogs, opinion pieces, picture galleries, video features, print editions, tablet journals, social media desks.... the list goes on.
As this great 10,000 words article from last year stated, the news story's lifecycle has become convoluted.
"News must be really hard to follow for an everyday consumer of a newspaper website. First tweets go out, sometimes with no links to additional coverage. Then a few grafs go up on a blog, followed by additional updates, either to the top of that post or as new posts. Eventually, a print story gets started, which is posted through an entirely different workflow onto a different-looking story page. This version is usually written as an hourglass-style narrative, following typical print conventions. For the rest of the day, new updates start going to this story rather than the original blog post."
Superdesk's aim is to make this workflow easier and more efficient. To allow content to be easily repurposed without being repackaged. To have an archival shelf-life that goes beyond the latest technology trend so when your news business needs to shift models, your content comes with you.
Mapping every newsroom workflow is impossible. But by understanding as many as possible, we can build a system that is flexible enough to help you shape a software system that works to improve your internal communication without having to resort to a complete overhaul of the way you work.
Here's where you come in. We've built an easy web-form that allows you to describe the lifecycle of a story in your news organisation. Give us as little or as much information as your time allows, and it will really help us think about the larger constellation of workflows Superdesk will adapt to.
As a small thank you, complete the web-form and you'll get a link to some HTML prototypes of the new Superdesk media archive. Right now functionality is limited (not all the buttons will work!), but play around with the placeholder items. Click the '+' and add to the scratchpad.
Maybe you want to build a playlist for immediate publication? Perhaps a collection for assignment to the broadcast team? Drag articles into a liveblog, or push over to the print guys for the late edition? The idea is to make the archiving, collection and assignment of news assets easy, efficient and tailored to your story workflow.
These early designs just give you an idea of what we're thinking, and they're very open to your input. Let us know how you get on in the comments below, or sign up to our #newsbeta list to be the first to get notice of these opportunities.