Issue system

David Mason and Mai Hoang are working to develop an editing issue system that would document necessary changes to various levels of content.

Why this functionality matters

Newspapers do an ample amount of editing on a daily basis. Such editing is done on internal documents, such as a in-house stylebook or police contacts or for content that goes out to the public, such as blogs and stories. In our discussions we determined the following challenges:

• Editors are dealing with multiple layers of content. At one time, it use to be that a newspaper would edit a story at the end of the day. Now newspapers deal with multiple types of content throughout the day including breaking news updates, blogs and then the traditional story at the end of the day.
• Internal documents are not updated. At Mai's newspaper for example, the in-house stylebook is two years old. I don't think it's so much that it isn't a priority, as other content tend to demand more attention.
• Most newspapers, particularity small and mid-sized ones, are more short staffed than ever, both on the editing and the reporting side.