I’ve written before about using WordPress as a cost-effective and easy-to-use content management system.
Part of the appeal is the wide range of professional looking designs available online, many of them free, or for just a fistful of dollars.
The team at WordPress itself have now released a new theme dubbed Prologue, which they liken to a group Twitter.
What’s interesting about this theme is that it allows contributors to post directly on the blog homepage, with the front page displaying a stream of recent updates.
This is the ideal format for a breaking news site, with reporters adding the latest details as they come in. Any news outlet could set up such a site around a specific event within minutes on WordPress.com.
Posts can be categorised and, as such, would be aggregrated. A user could just read the entries related to one aspect of a news story, say posts about police statements, or eyewitness accounts.
Or a newsroom could set one up to tell the audience about the news stories and features they are working on.
Prologue is full of intriguing possibilities and it is impressive how a different theme can offer such a different experience.
The theme is available on WordPress.com for blogs hosted there but also as a download for those hosted elsehwere.
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Pingback on Jan 31st, 2008 at 8:26 am
[...] Create a breaking news site in minutes with WordPress « Reportr.net “WordPress team has released a new theme: Prologue, like a group Twitter. Allows contributors to post directly on the blog front page, displaying a stream of recent updates. Ideal format for a breaking news site. Reporters add latest details.” (tags: journalism breaking+news WordPress tools content+management tidbits+fodder) [...]
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Pingback on Feb 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
[...] news with Prologue Posted in Journalism by gr760084 on February 2nd, 2008 I read this really cool idea today for dealing with breaking news stories. I read about prologue while I was setting up this [...]
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Pingback on Feb 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[...] Create a breaking news site in minutes with WordPress (tags: wordpress twitter news) [...]
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Pingback on Feb 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
[...] Create a breaking news site in minutes with WordPress - Reportr.net “The team at WordPress itself have now released a new theme dubbed Prologue, which they liken to a group Twitter… This is the ideal format for a breaking news site, with reporters adding the latest details as they come in.” (tags: internet newspapers newspapersites journalism blogging cms tools twitter wordpress) [...]
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January 31, 2008 at 4:34 am
Great post, Alf.
Perfect example of why journalists should know at least the basics of configuring a CMS. In a real breaking news situation, with a small team, someone would have to set up the breaking news blog — and that might be one of the journos.
- Amy Gahran