Each quarter Newspack publishes the top five product improvements it adds to this CMS, based on WordPress and designed for small and mid sized newspapers, to help them reach more users and be sustainable.
These would be the improvements highlighted by the Newspack team itself during the third quarter:
First, content distribution in multisite installations has been greatly improved. A more efficient system has been implemented that replaces the Distributor plugin and now sending content to different newspapers across the network is easier and it is something that is integrated directly into Newspack.
Second, new enhancements have been introduced in the advertising system. For example, fixed footer ads that were already available on the mobile version now come to desktop, and this is combined with a range of other improvements that even extend to the newsletters sent by email. These changes are in line with one of Newspack’s pillars, which is to make local journalism sustainable and profitable.
Just as important as the above is the third improvement, which enables exporting publications directly to InDesign, a radical enhancement for publications that go to print. The InDesign Tagged Text format (IDTT) has been added, and this makes it possible to place content into predesigned InDesign templates.
Fourth, custom bylines that were already available in posts now come to the newsletters sent by email. When inserting posts into a newsletter, the byline shown will respect the customized one instead of the post authorS. It is a detail, but an important one that helps maintain accuracy and consistency across all publishing channels.
Fifth, Newspack says it is working hard on the migration and launch of Foundation CMS, the content manager used by dozens of alternative news sites that will move to Newspack. “The same features we are developing for these 25 alternative weeklies are laying the groundwork for new and exciting features that we will roll out to all publishers in the fourth quarter,” they say from this CMS.
The next quarter will focus on this migration and on bringing improvements based on it to the rest of clients. From CMS MAG we will be delighted to report on it in the future.
* Original article written in Spanish, translated with chatGPT and reviewed in English by Jorge Mediavilla.
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