| The focus on the tools in entirely justified. The reason is this: You really should not be looking at it as a CMS. It is a complete workflow system. In short, these are the systems that the business depends on to write stories, edit stories, publish stories, syndicate stories, promote stories, and so on. An advantage of a proper system is not merely 10% efficiency:
1. It can impose a process, where none existed before. Perhaps, this can be a quality check process. It can be user feedback process. It can be promotion of journalists process. A process can improve operations and the outcome. 2. It can automate a process. Even if process exists today, if it is not automated, it may not be enforced. We do not have measurement on how well the process is adhered to; who is using it and who is not; what the costs of not using the process are. 3. It can optimize a process. If we can automate and measure, then improvement is natural. In addition to all these process improvements, something like Chorus can even improve the way it is reaching the customers. For instance, the costs of pushing to different channels is negligible. Their cards based context education system is considered innovative in the industry. If you look at the existing publishing platforms, you will understand how CMS can change the game. See more about Chorus here: http://pfauth.com/publishing-platforms/vox-medias-chorus . If you want to see the competition that the rest use, see: http://www.ccieurope.com/solutions/NewsGate/ (this is the new version-- think about the previous version and then you can understand the excitement about Chorus). |
I appreciate your argument that these new CMS systems are better thought of as improved "journalism life cycle" management systems, to borrow a more familiar jargon.
Given that view, I would have to say that these tools are not good because the system output is not good. Every PLC system I've been a part of has a quality assurance component, and in the case of Vox Media, that quality component doesn't seem to be sufficiently engaged. More worrying to me is that when edits are made at vox.com (and I assume, perhaps in error, at other Vox Media sites), the changes tend to be as silent as possible. I can never be sure of the accuracy of the article I'm viewing. In addition, there are frankly immature actions of Vox Media staff (seems to be concentrated at The Verge) that signal to me that the company culture is problematic. I expect journalists to have an air of professionalism, like Walter Cronkite. I get the feeling that Vox Media is a bunch of bloggers acting as journalists, when the original concept (as I understood it) was that it was journalists that could respond with the speed and flexibility of bloggers, thanks to the Chorus system.
Maybe I expect too much from internet journalism. If you'll excuse me, I think there's some kids on my lawn I need to chase away.