Software package

News publishing package

A newsroom platform with a desk queue, revision history, scheduled publishing, editions, live blog, corrections log, news feeds and advert positions, ready to configure around your sections and staff.

Custom build Concept demo

Get a quote for this package

Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Local, regional and national news titles that publish every day, from a single weekly with a handful of staff up to a daily with separate desks for news, sport and business. It suits chief editors who need to see what is filed and what is scheduled at a glance, sub-editors who want revision history they can trust, section editors who own their part of the site, and advertising managers who need to change a position without asking a developer.

Also worth knowing

It is less suited to issue-based magazines, which need an issue model rather than a continuous desk, and to single-author blogs or content hubs, which do not need desk stages or editions. Both have their own packages. Titles whose archive sits across several legacy systems should look at the custom service first.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

The chief editor opens the desk at seven.

The queue shows every story by stage: pitched overnight, assigned to a reporter, filed, with the sub, scheduled.
A council story filed at six is sitting with the news sub, who has cut the intro and moved a paragraph; the revision view shows exactly what changed, and the reporter can see it from their phone without ringing the desk.
The section editor approves it for the morning slot, picks the lead image, sets the focal point so the crop works on mobile, and schedules it for half past seven.
The system also places it on the regional edition with a shorter headline the regional editor wrote.

At nine a court verdict lands.

The reporter opens a live blog on the story page and posts timestamped updates from the court; the breaking-news banner goes up with a two-hour expiry.
Readers hit the cached page while the updates stream in.
By eleven the desk learns a name was misspelt in the morning story.
The sub corrects it, and the corrections log appears at the foot of the article with the time and a one-line note.
The advertising manager swaps the leaderboard campaign on the sport section from the ad positions screen, and the news sitemap and feeds pick up every published story without anyone touching them.

Features

What the package does

The package is organised as modules that follow the story from pitch to archive: the desk and revisions, publishing and editions, the article experience, and the delivery layer of caching, feeds and advert positions. Each module below lists what it does; the comparison table shows which package variant includes it.

Workflow and tasks

Newsdesk queueStories move through pitched, assigned, filed, subbed and published stages, and reporters, subeditors and section editors get only the permissions their role needs.
Article revision historyEvery save is kept, with a side-by-side comparison and a one-click restore when an edit needs to be undone.
Scheduled publishing and embargoSet a story to go live at a chosen time, or hold it under embargo until the agreed release moment.

Content and editorial

Categories, tags, authors and seriesOrganise coverage by section, topic, byline and running series, with an archive page for each.
Image sets with focal point and creditsUploaded pictures are resized into responsive sets, cropped around a chosen focal point and shown with captions and credits.
Corrections and updates logCorrections and updates are recorded and displayed on the article itself, so readers can see what changed and when.
Breaking-news banner and live blogPut a banner across the site that expires on its own, and run a live-blog block for stories that develop through the day.

Integrations

News sitemap, feeds and page cachingA news sitemap and RSS or Atom feeds are generated from published stories, and pages are cached with the right one cleared when an article changes.
Old-URL migration with redirect importImport a list of old addresses so existing links and search results land on the right story after the move.

Catalogue and checkout

Advert positions with house-ad fallbackDefine advert positions for each template; when no paid advert is booked, a house advert fills the space.
Paywall or metered accessLimit access to selected stories or to a number of free reads, with subscriber accounts to sign in to.

Listings and search

Regional or section editionsRun editions with their own headlines and placement for a region or section of coverage.

Package variants compared

Website
Custom Platform

Which features each package variant includes
Feature	Website	Custom Platform
Newsdesk queue	Included	Included
Article revision history	Included	Included
Scheduled publishing and embargo	Included	Included
Categories, tags, authors and series	Included	Included
Image sets with focal point and credits	Included	Included
Corrections and updates log	Included	Included
Breaking-news banner and live blog	Included	Included
News sitemap, feeds and page caching	Included	Included
Advert positions with house-ad fallback	Included	Included
Old-URL migration with redirect import	Included	Included
Regional or section editions	Not in this variant	Optional
Paywall or metered access	Not in this variant	Optional

Roles and permissions

Who does what

Chief editor
- See the whole desk queue across sections and editions
- Publish, unpublish or reschedule any story
- Set section permissions and editorial roles
- Review the corrections log and revision history for any article
Section editor
- Assign pitches to reporters within their section
- Approve subbed stories and schedule them
- Manage the section front and related-content rules
- Set the edition headline and placement for their section
Sub-editor
- Edit filed stories with a full revision diff
- Send a story back to the reporter with notes
- Mark a story as subbed and ready for scheduling
- Add a correction note that appears on the article
Reporter
- Pitch and file stories from a phone or desktop
- Upload images with captions and credits
- Run a live blog on an assigned story
- See the status and revisions of their own stories
Advertising manager
- Change which campaign fills each advert position per template
- Set house-ad fallbacks when no campaign is booked
- See positions by section and edition
Reader
- Read articles, sections, editions and live blogs
- Subscribe to feeds and newsletters where offered
- Register or subscribe when metered access is enabled

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of the newsroom desk queue showing story stages, section placements and a revision indicator.

The desk queue as the chief editor sees it: stories grouped by stage from pitched to scheduled, the section and edition each one is placed on, and a revision marker on the story currently with the sub.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

Desk queue with pitched, assigned, filed, subbed and published stages
Editorial roles with permissions per section
Article revision history with diff and restore
Scheduled publishing and embargo
Categories, tags, authors and series
Media processing with responsive image sets, focal point, captions and credits
Corrections and updates log shown on the article
Breaking-news banner with expiry and a live-blog block
Full-page caching with per-article purge
News sitemap and RSS or Atom feeds
Advert positions per template with house-ad fallback
Old-URL migration with redirect import

Common add-ons

Regional or section editions with their own headlines and placement
Paywall or metered access with subscriber accounts
Press-agency feed intake configured against your agency subscriptions
Print-edition archive link

Needs custom work

Migration from several legacy systems into one archive
Integration with a specific ad server or subscription platform
Bespoke editorial reporting beyond the standard desk dashboards

See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

The package runs on your own hosting or on hosting we manage; the choice is recorded in the proposal and can change later. Either way you own the code and your content. Articles, images, authors, the redirect map and subscriber records can be exported at any time in standard formats, and nothing in the platform ties you to one provider.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately from the build. When taken, it covers security updates to the platform and its dependencies, monitoring of scheduled publishing, feeds and the cache purge, backups of the archive and media, and a monthly window for small configuration changes such as a new section, a new advert position or a change to a related-content rule. Larger work is quoted as a change request against the original scope.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

The package is sold as a one-off setup and customisation, with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines. The setup figure depends on the number of sections and editions, the size of the editorial team, the add-ons chosen, the archive volume to migrate and whether you host it yourself. Each line is stated separately in the proposal so recurring costs are never folded into the build.

Software package

Custom build Concept demo

Variants

Desk queue with pitched, assigned, filed, subbed and published stages
Editorial roles with permissions per section
Article revision history with diff and restore
Scheduled publishing and embargo

Priced per proposal. A written proposal is the only binding figure.

Get a quote for this package Prefer a fully custom build?

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can two people work on the same story without overwriting each other?

Every save creates a revision with a diff, and the desk shows who currently holds the story. If a sub and a reporter both save, nothing is lost: the earlier version can be compared and restored.

How do editions work?

With the editions add-on, a story can be placed on more than one edition, each with its own headline, image crop and position. The regional editor controls their edition without touching the national placement.

What happens when we correct a published story?

The sub makes the change and adds a correction note. The note is shown on the article with the time, the cached page is purged, and the revision history keeps the original wording for the record.

Can the advertising manager change positions without a developer?

Yes. Positions are defined per template during setup, and the advertising role chooses which campaign fills each one and what the house-ad fallback is. Adding a new position to a template is a configuration change rather than code.

Will our old URLs still work after we move?

The migration imports a redirect map so old story links resolve to their new addresses. We test the map against a sample of your most-visited archive pages before launch.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge shows the real state of the package: it is a custom build assembled from our editorial, media and caching modules for each newsroom, and the example on this page is a labelled concept demo rather than a live title. If you need to see a working newsroom first, say so and we will walk you through the modules on a call.

What if our desk workflow is unusual?

Desk stages and permissions are configurable within the package. Where the workflow needs something structurally different, such as shared reporters across several titles, the custom news website service is the right route and we will say so during scoping.

Get a quote for News publishing package

Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.