Whether online, print, or television: Editorial systems support the complex workflows that need to be managed every day in newsrooms and editorial teams across various media houses. They simplify all journalistic and content-specific tasks and assist editors in managing assets and content, developing channel-specific outputs, and cross-media publishing of new content. Here, we explain what to look for in an editorial system for media production and which features help publishers and broadcasters.
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What is an editorial system?
An editorial system is a web-based tool for the joint management of editorial content, for example to create new articles and publish them easily on a website or in newspapers. In other words, if you want to tackle content management across media successfully, you need an editorial system or editorial software. Since content is now created everywhere, this software is used not only in journalistic editorial offices but also in publishing houses and corporate newsrooms as part of corporate publishing. It simplifies and supports various processes in media houses and newsrooms—from reviewing content to maintaining, managing, and preparing multimedia content (text, video, audio, graphics) and publishing it across desired channels. A key feature of editorial software is the separation of content, format, and structure. Additionally, editorial systems also offer the option of managing access and user rights as required – allowing you to set up defined workflows for content management.
How the separation of content, format, and structure works and how newsrooms benefit from it is explained on our page about crossmedia publishing.
What is the difference between editorial software and content management systems?
Due to their functional similarities, editorial systems and content management systems (CMS) are often equated. However, there is a small but crucial difference: While a CMS is designed to manage, store, and deliver website content, an editorial system is not limited to websites as a publication channel. Instead, it enables content distribution across various channels: from print media such as newspapers, magazines, and brochures, to digital channels like websites and apps, and even formats for corporate communication, such as press releases, business reports, and annual statements. Additionally, corporate intranets typically use a CMS as their technological foundation.
How does an editorial system work?
Despite their often high functional complexity, editorial systems are a must-have for newsrooms. They enable editorial teams to efficiently manage multimedia content, prepare it as needed, and publish it across multiple channels. An editorial system pulls the required content for publication on a channel from a central data source—content is thus maintained in a media-neutral manner. Once created, content can be used cross-medially and published simultaneously. Re-editing is also straightforward: as long as users have the appropriate rights set within the editorial tool, they can prepare the necessary content for the specific purpose and channel in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor without any programming knowledge.
Requirements of an editorial system
For comprehensive editorial planning and cross-media content publication, modern editorial software should especially meet the following requirements:
To ensure that employees can access the editorial system and its stored content regardless of time, location, and device, it should be available as a web application. This allows multiple people to work on a document simultaneously and transparently track each other’s changes and the status of documents.
Ideally, an editorial tool should have a clear, user-friendly web interface and be intuitive to use. This allows content managers to quickly become familiar with the software and use it efficiently from the start. A key component is an integrated editor where editors can easily edit texts, links, graphics, videos, audios, and other multimedia content, format them as needed, and combine them for specific channels.
For efficient collaboration, the editorial software should support a tailored rights and roles concept. Content managers define in the software which users or user groups are allowed to handle specific assets and content. For example, while editors may create and publish new content, employees from other departments might only have read access.
To publish multimedia content in the desired output channel, all content must be stored in the editorial system in a media-neutral format — meaning without graphical formatting and styling. This allows editors to efficiently process and repurpose the same content for various uses.
Storing data in a media-neutral format is only possible if the newsroom software supports the necessary separation of content and design. The so-called Single Source Publishing allows for systematically storing reusable content and adjusting the output format of each asset for the desired publication channel.
An editorial system can only fulfill its primary purpose — cross-media content distribution — if it is connected to relevant output systems through application programming interfaces (APIs). This includes integration with media asset management (MAM) solutions, content management systems (CMS), broadcast management systems, and directory services such as Active Directory.
The larger the newsroom and the broader the range of topics, the more extensive the volume of produced content. To quickly locate information, a powerful search function with customizable filter options is essential. A key requirement is that editors tag each individual asset with meaningful metadata.
What benefits does an editorial system offer?
The functional characteristics of an editorial tool offer many advantages that support and simplify editorial work in the newsroom. The two most important are:
Optimised workflows
A key advantage of editorial system software is that it significantly enhances the efficiency of newsroom workflows regarding the creation, management, and publishing of assets and content. This means that content managers not only collaborate more easily and effectively thanks to the software but also make fewer mistakes, while the number of review and correction cycles is reduced.
Centralized availability of assets and content
An editorial system acts as a central content hub, where, in addition to individual assets, communication concepts, editorial plans for social media and other channels, as well as content in various stages (draft or final), are stored. This provides editors with an up-to-date overview of planned, current, and completed activities at all times.
How do various editorial systems differ?
The choice of an editorial system for a newsroom depends on individual needs. Smaller editorial teams might manage well with an Excel spreadsheet or the integrated features of their content management system (CMS). Larger newsrooms in companies and journalistic organizations, however, require a tool that better addresses their specific needs. In the field of editorial planning in the media industry, the market is still relatively untapped. Differences between the available editorial tools primarily include:
- Customizing,
- Social media management,
- Features for linear TV,
- Audio features,
- AI features and
- Monitoring.
As the media industry undergoes a disruptive transformation — from linear media business models and separate silos in linear TV, radio, print, and online to a cross-platform approach — modern editorial systems must enable multichannel publishing and integrate planning across all channels. This also includes a robust component for social media management.
The situation is somewhat different for corporate newsrooms. Here, editorial software in the form of a CMS is already well established in many places. Differences between solutions often lie in areas such as AI-based process support, social media management, customisation, and monitoring.
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What does an editorial system cost?
Typically, the implementation of an editorial tool involves relatively high initial costs. These are primarily due to the acquisition of licenses and the often necessary customization. Adapting to the specific needs of a newsroom also involves creating a tailored concept, preparing content for migration, structuring it for import, connecting any required components to the editorial system, and ensuring transparent documentation. To keep both acquisition costs and the initial implementation effort as low as possible, it is advisable to choose an editorial software that supports individual customization and offers future-proof features, including numerous AI functionalities, such as monitoring and managing various social media platforms — including the automatic publishing of multimedia content.
The future of editorial systems: Supported by AI
Technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) automate and standardize a wide range of processes along content research, creation, preparation, production, and publication. This significantly simplifies and speeds up their execution. For example, AI can simplify the research and discovery of new trends and topics by automatically sorting incoming news, filtering them by relevance, and showing what the competition has already published on a planned topic.
In the future, AI-powered editorial systems will also be able to generate forecasts. By analyzing vast amounts of historical and reach data (big data), the editorial tool will derive predictions for future developments and create a fairly reliable forecasting model. For example, it can estimate the likelihood of a topic becoming a trend or its potential to achieve significant reach. Understanding expected trends will enable newsrooms to filter out the most promising topics from the multitude available and optimally allocate their staff to develop the right subjects. Additionally, AI will not only automatically determine the format in which a video should be published on a specific channel and convert it into the required video format, but it will also predict the ideal timing for publishing the video.
How exactly artificial intelligence enriches work in the newsroom is detailed in FKT-Magazin – Issue 12/2020.
Editorial system in newsrooms: our conclusion
Editorial tools provide the essential technological foundation for any modern newsroom. Such content management software enables editors to efficiently manage multimedia content, prepare it as needed, and publish it across multiple channels. This not only helps staff in the newsroom handle the vast amounts of content but also meets the needs of their increasingly demanding audiences.
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