🧠 Project Template of the Month: Article Planning (Journalism)

Miša Hennin

Hey!

In this post, we're taking a look at how MeisterTask can lighten the heavy load of leading a team of journalists all working on their own articles in different newspaper sections 🗞.

Our very own wordsmith ✏️ @Caleb Dorfman designed this board to help team leads in journalism stay on top of different articles at different stages in different sections happening simultaneously 🤯.

In this static board template, stories are placed in corresponding sections dedicated to a specific theme or section of the newspaper; for example, the 'Entertainment' section includes articles on celebrities, series and music 🎶. This visual overview of what's going on across the entire newspaper solves some of the disorganization team leads can face in the fast-paced world of journalism 🏃‍♀️.

Template Highlights

Using Checklist Templates for Quality Control

Caleb designed a checklist template which is automatically loaded in any new task they create. The checklist covers each essential step in preparing an article for print and ensures journalists don't accidentally overlook something crucial in the process. Encouraging writers to check items off as they proceed allows supervisors to keep tabs on progress without constantly reaching out. 

Adding Tags for Categorization

Tags make it easy to filter articles by genre. With tags, Caleb can quickly see what sort of articles his writers are gravitating towards. As a result, he can better assign tasks in the future. The tags also give a good overview of what the paper is covering. 

Using Automations to Reassign Tasks

Although Caleb's board is primarily static, his writers move their articles to the final Ready for Print column once they've been written and edited. Caleb set up an Assign Task automation so that tasks moved to the final section will automatically be assigned to him as he is in charge of printing. The due date is set to ensure the article is printed, the rest of the team is emailed about the publication and the task is completed. 

You can explore this board independently by importing the json file attached below. We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback - and of course, see any similar project boards you've created - so please share below😊.

💡 More info on importing project templates can be found here. Note: Automations won't be imported and will have to be set up manually. You can find out more about automations here.💡

Journalism Project Board.json

Miša Hennin

Hey @Panhuber, @Andres D'Andrea and @Michael Heil, since we all discussed checklists in the post about subtasks, I just wanted to draw your attention to @Caleb Dorfman's use case for checklist templates here.

I think it's a great way to ensure quality control and consistency and thought you might be interested! Have you used checklist templates before?

Michael Heil

@Miša yes, we've used checklist templates before, but for sure not as intense at we could and should do 🙈. But thank you for the reminder 👍️

Admin BSF.company

Hi @Miša thanks for pointing me here. This certainly helps for some work my content team is doing. I'll test some implementations.

I wish you all a great start of the week!

Best regards :)

Lina

Hey, this was interesting to see. I like the idea of getting a single broad overview of different teams and their tasks (all within one board). I think this could be transferred to a whole range of different cases/ sectors. It could also just work with the key campaigns different departments across a company are working on?

thanks for sharing!

Miša Hennin

Hey @Lina thanks for reaching out.

Yes exactly - I think this structure could be used in a variety of situations. It also reminds me of this MeisterHack where I suggest using a MeisterTask board company-wide to highlight key events and projects.

Best,

Miša