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

important to shift workflow so that Web comes first, print comes later; use revisions, unpublished status to collaboratively edit drafts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

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to allow writers to post unpublished content, set default in content type to unpublished

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

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

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.