What needs to happen every shift

This is a set of tasks that needs to be taken care of during every shift. This is a rough guideline. It might be easiest to think of it as something that needs to be approached chronologically. Unless you’re all alone during the shift, some of these tasks should be shared among team members so everyone has time to work on their own stories or fulfill their other duties.

Morning

Jail logs

This post usually kick-starts the day and gives us a good flow of readers. Make sure to double-check the generated content for errors and, if necessary, find the error in the code and correct it.

Look at the home page

Check for any headline errors or headlines that are too many characters long. If so, fix them. This is also an excellent time to learn whether stories were left pinned overnight. If so, maybe that’s something that needs to be followed up on or tagged for a follow up later in the day. Either way, make a decision on whether the story should remain pinned.

Curate and publish stories that were shared overnight.

Select suitable categories for each story and make sure promo links and SEO fields are taken care of for each article. If a story is coming from Texas, make sure it has a good Title Tag, Excerpt and Description.

Check local stories from the previous night

Do any of them need follow-ups? If a story performed well last night repost on social media, consider a photo post rather than the usual link post so it will be shown to more users.

Optimize social posts and clean up SocialFlow hold list

It’s easiest to find the most interesting/topical/recent stories from overnight shares and optimize at least 6 of them over the next 12 hours. Faster moving stories or breaking stories (or even semi-breaking) should be optimized within a shorter time period. Essentially, the idea is to give yourself and your teammates some padding time to work on your own stories while still sharing content that could be interesting to social media users.

Work your stories

You should have some time to advance any stories you’re working on. If you have any quick spot news pieces that can be published, now might be a good time to get those out.

Check on pending stories/SocialFlow

This will be something that needs to be tended to repeatedly over the course of your shift. Again, unless you’re working alone it should be shared among everyone working during a shift. Do this roughly once an hour and things should go smoothly.

Keep working your stories

You know the drill.

Afternoon/Evening

Check in with your team

Find out about anything that’s been developing over the course of the day. Get familiarized with the stories that may have broken during the day. Do you need to handle a follow up while your teammates work on their story pile? Is there a story you’re going to need to keep up with over the course of the evening?

Curate and publish any pending stories

See #3 in the morning shift.

Optimize social posts and clean up SocialFlow hold list

At the start of the afternoon shift, there’s likely to be at least a few posts in the hold bin that just aren’t going to interest anyone. Make sure to clean those out so it’s easier to keep up with optimizing/scheduling without confusion later.

Photo/video social posts

If we have a big story from the morning now is a good time to create a photo/video social post for it so we can get the most out of our social media.

Work your stories

See #6 above. If you have any press releases or quick stories that need to go out, now’s the time.

VOSOT Prep

Check Daybook for the stories and VOSOTS the broadcast side is working on. Get more information about those VOSOTs and write up a quick story for each of them. If you need to get more information call the newsroom and talk to someone about it. If they don’t have the info now is the time to do journalism and call people for more info.

VOSOTS

If you have a few published stories ready, this step will be easy. Watch the 5:00 and 6:00 on Anvato and clip the VOSOTS. Place the video into your already published story. If it’s interesting enough schedule it for another social share. If you don’t have an article done for the VOSOT, now is the time to write, publish, and share one.

Broadcast Reporter Articles

Reporters will be emailing to let you know their articles are drafted and ready to be edited. Double-check that the written article is written in AP style, place promo links, and tend to the story’s SEO fields. If it’s a reporter’s story it’s your job to schedule it and handle the social sharing. If it’s a sports story you can tell them to publish/share when ready (just make sure to double-check that they added the Top Stories category and that there’s a suitable Homepage Headline).

Late VOSOTs

Check to make sure any late-breaking stories are clipped from the 10:00 broadcast. If a story broke and it doesn’t already have an article it will need to be written and published right away.

Optimize overnight social

Optimize SocialFlow stories until 6:00 - 6:30 the next morning. SocialFlow is configured to share out one optimized story overnight, so if you’re doing this at the end of the evening shift you can probably optimize 8 stories.