Role

Strategic Content/Special Reports Editor

• Assigning, editing, and writing stories
• Write about planned stories, work with freelance reporters

Everything is in Toolbelt

• Story, Chart, Image, Video, Slideshow, etc.

Experience

3 years, saw different stages of Toolbelt

• Used WordPress and other custom built CMSs

Day-to-Day Work

Depends on if he’s writing or planning, mostly:

• Templating & editing stories
• Talking to reporters and other editors
• Meetings
  • Planning an editorial calendar
  • Brainstorming for new editorial content, sections, special reports
  • New editorial partnership with 3rd parties
• Monitoring the traffic to see which stories are working
• Put together Email Newsletter every week

Communication

• Photo Desk
  • For images to put in the articles and Slideshows
• Graphics team
• Breaking News
• Development team
  • To create one-time templates and hacks

Prioritization based on:

• What’s going to be published next
• What needs the most work done (in terms of editing)
• Traffic goals for various properties, various sections of the site
• What needs more traffic
• What has revenue tied to it that’s at risk, if the traffic is not met

Often-used Content Type and Features in Toolbelt

Content Type

• News Story and Contemplates
• Templates
• Chart asset
• Image
• Slideshow
• Wild Card

Pain Points

• If using external charting tool, never sure if it will render correctly with mobile, which gets updated often
  • Seems safer now to use Chart asset in Toolbelt
• Slack doesn’t seem more efficient than email, and it’s just another channel to manage
• Toolbelt only properly accepting Plain Texts
  • Messes up the hyperlinks
  • Takes longer to paste in formatted text
• Miscommunication happening because of filling out separate Video Clip Request forms
• Crashes and doesn’t autosave
• There are certain assets that are not used anymore or irrelevant, but still existing in the system
  • Charts or Templates that are obsolete
  • No one informed about them not being used anymore
  • e.g. Template created 6 months ago became messed up with the new design update
• Chart Content Type doesn’t allow to embed source information
  • Have to do it in the body of the story that the chart goes into
• Preview of the Slideshow doesn’t match up with the live view
  • Uses the preview to check if the text fits within a single page
  • Thinks it’s because the ad doesn’t render in the preview
• Previous filter not clearing out even though searching with specific ID
• Long commute
• Hardware issues, old computer
• Many meetings

Wants

• Way to communicate with others within Toolbelt
  • e.g. Send the finished article to the Copy Editor immediately without having to write separate email with all the information
  • e.g. Started to create videos himself – wants to communicate directly with the video team, not having to go to the form
• Google-like autosave feature
• Old templates to be displayed correctly, as articles live in perpetuity
• More flexibility in Chart, e.g. hyperlink the source, include notes, different chart types, etc.
  • Like Datawrapper
• Ability to preview the live videos
• Have accurate preview of Slideshow
  • Including the ad spot
• Caption field for Slideshow
  • The caption of the image doesn’t get exposed
  • There are cases that he needs contextual captions
• If the ID is distinct, wants the filter to clear out, no matter what the filter is

Tools & Software

Writing

• Microsoft Office Suite & Word
• Google Drive Suite

Chart Tools

• Datawrapper
• Data Viz team licensed

Communication

• Slack
• Email
• Google Doc Assignment List
  • Add the completed article in either Copy for Same Day Editing and Pubbing or Copy for Editing and Pubbing Next Day and Beyond section

Work Behaviors & Rules

•  Does everything on Toolbelt but video
  • Creates video ID (placeholder) and the Video team does the rest
• A story may take from a day to 2 weeks, a week on average
  • Certain story needs to be done within a day or else becomes irrelevant, e.g. about a company in Earnings, then assign it to someone who can turn it in a day
  • Longer term, e.g. annual top states project, list projects gets assigned a month in advance
  • Some of the freelancers would turn it in in 48 hours even though they get a week
• Tries not to create Slideshows that requires a lot of text
  • Slideshow should be able to tell the story with the image
  • Enter only upto 3~4 paragraphs if necessary, so the user doesn’t need to scroll down
• Tries to look for the photos himself and use Photo Desk as a resource to double-check the licensing and feedback

Miscellaneous

• Can’t preview a Chart, Video, or Wild Card by itself – after embedding in the story