A 5-minute explanation of our crazy, complicated management system

My Editor in Chief, Amrutha Dorai, sent out a screencast to the staff earlier this year that taught them the process we use to manage stories as they are assigned and move through the editing process. Since I’ve been asked how we do this in the past, I thought I’d share it here.

In case you can’t see in the video, our stories go through the following edits:

1. Section edit

2. Copy 1 edit

3. Copy 2 edit

4. Copy 3 or Balmeo edit

5. Section editor proofread

6. Publish

And because I know someone will ask this: nope, they don’t use the comment tool in Google Docs. Why? Because old habits die hard, I suppose. We’ve been doing it this way since before that function existed.

I’m curious to hear about how other staffs move their content through edits. How do you manage online stories with rolling deadlines? Do you have a crazy big Google spreadsheet? Anyone still using actual printed paper?