Interdependent Web

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session details: Drupal in the Newsroom

Panelist introductions

• New York Observer has been running Drupal since 2007, recently moved to D6
• McClatchy Interactive (online editions of newspapers such as Miami Herald) has integrated as many as 50 different programs into Drupal
• Mother Jones Magazine decided to move to Drupal just a year ago, went live 2.5 weeks ago
  

Workflow

• important to shift workflow so that Web comes first, print comes later; use revisions, unpublished status to collaboratively edit drafts
  
• editors assign weights to stories to control order on the page
• Miami.com has expanded McClatchy's conception of how big & complex a Drupal site can be
• MoJo's primary challenge had to do with changing the culture & identity of the magazine to 24/7 blogging forum
• "reverse publishing" -- scrape RSS feed from Drupal into editing software
• writers have to adjust to writing more frequent, shorter pieces instead of long ones

User roles and permissions

• jobs are not always as well defined as Drupal would like ... some bloggers can be trusted to post directly while some senior contributors need editing
• start with reporters, editors, editorial producers, tech team
• roles are constantly evolving
• MoJo tends to err on the side of giving more permissions than people may need
• to allow writers to post unpublished content, set default in content type to unpublished

Engaging the public

• readers now expect to be included in conversation - commenting is crucial
• flags on comments at MoJo: recommended solution, documentation of a result
• have to create culture of commenting to overcome barriers to entry (registration)
• MoJo found comment volume went down 90% when required registration
• Mollom and Flag modules can dramatically reduce comment spam
• encourage authors to respond to comment thread

Subscription management

• no good solutions to offer; all sub mgrs seem to interface badly with the Web as yet

Why Drupal?

• the community (of developers)
• open source values
• at McClatchy, publications started demanding it once they saw it in action on other sites
• quick development time -- week and a half from new concept to public site
  
• bang for the buck
• question: is this a fad?  Will we all be switching CMSes in 2 years?  Community is looking forward to the future of the Web more than most.

Newspaper group at http://groups.drupal.org