Don’t let the newsroom CMS stifle creativity

Friday, 9 February 2007, 18:18

Andy Dickinson looks at the Croydon Advertiser’s use Soundslides slideshows, which we reported in Press Gazette this week.

One interesting thing about the Advertiser’s project is that the slideshows are actually hosted off-site on the blog of Advertiser Picture Editor and Chief Photographer, David Berman.

Andy thinks this was a good idea for getting around the limitations imposed by the creaking content management systems many news web sites use.

“I’ve never understood why, given the restrictions of the centralised templating systems the locals are labouring under, more and more outfits don’t go to free or low cost services outside,” writes Dickinson.

Berman himself pipes up in the comments: “It wasn’t hard to decide to go our own way to get the IT soloution. It just would have taken more time than I could allow.”

I know what they mean. This week, I’ve been getting reacquainted to toiling within the limitations of a “content management system”, which will henceforth be known as a “restrictive centralised templating system”, or RCTS. Arrgh.

We’re looking to make some major upgrades to our RCTS, and on thing I am trying to insist upon is a simple Unix box to host blogs and other rapid-development experimental projects. Why wait for external web developers to do things you can do much faster in-house?

Entry Filed under: Croydon Advertiser, Soundslides, content management systems