Select a CMS for your news organization
Get started with publishing online
What is a content management system?
Every day, news organizations use a CMS, or content management system, to publish their articles online. It’s typically the first technology your news organization chooses when building their tech stack.
If you’re starting a newsletter, you might use an email service provider (ESP) as your CMS.
What might I need a CMS for?
Content management systems don’t just help publish - they also support other parts of your news organization, like audience engagement, ad revenue, or reader revenue.
Review these questions to make sure a CMS can meet your needs:
Audience
- Do you moderate, approve, and remove comments?
- Do you send emails, texts, or notifications when an article is published?
- Do you send newsletters?
- Do you recommend articles based on individual readers?
- Do you support a print publication by exporting articles for layouts?
Content
- Do you publish real-time, localized information, like local weather or traffic?
- Do you publish social media content, like Tweets or public Facebook posts?
Monetization
- Do you sell ads?
- Do you have a subscription with a paywall?
- Do you collect payments on your site, like for donations?
Who will use your CMS?
Many news organizations have several teams that might use your content management system, such as:
- Editorial will publish every day
- Audience might publish or re-publish articles
- Product might ensure articles are displaying properly based on your site’s design
- Business might manage different sources of revenue, like creating subscription landing pages or ensuring ads are displaying properly
Evaluate whether a content management system will meet your needs by asking these questions, especially if you’re a smaller news organization:
- Technical skills: Who can help you with implementation?
- Support: Who can you ask if you have questions or issues?
- Familiarity: How familiar is your team with other content management systems? Which have they used in the past?
- Price: How much can you budget? Can you start with a free option, and pay for an upgrade later?
Which CMS do news organizations use?
The Google News Initiative and the International News Media Association (INMA) surveyed, interviewed, and evaluated 15 CMS providers based on a list of features. All reviews were conducted by independent third-party experts, and included:
- A 70-question questionnaire
- A 90-minute demo
- Customer reference checks
- Fact-check interview with each CMS provider
The 15 CMS providers include:
- Arc XP
- Atex ACE
- BLOX Digital (formerly TownNews)
- Drupal
- Eidosmedia
- Ghost
- Naviga Global
- Newspack
- Ring Publishing
- Stibo DX
- Tresite
- Whitebeard
- Woodwing
- Wordpress (Managed, VIP)
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