In a busy newsroom, the calendar is much more than a meeting planner or PTO tracker. It’s the foundation of editorial planning, which is fundamentally time-based. For each story or assignment, when matters just as much as what. Timeliness determines whether a story is relevant and interesting or passed over as yesterday’s news.
Editorial planning and scheduling in the newsroom is complicated. It involves multiple departments, shared resources, and vying needs. With the right tool, though, these challenges can be handled. Here’s a look at the top editorial planning challenges, and what’s needed to overcome them.
Common challenges with editorial planning
1. Duplicate or overlapping coverage
The challenge
Many events are relevant across multiple verticals. For example, a major sports event might be covered by News, Features, or Sports. Newsrooms need to work efficiently. When multiple reporters cover the same event, it’s a waste of resources. And it often means having to rework or combine stories, adding extra workload for the editors and leaving story space to be filled at the last minute.
Why it happens
- Siloed editorial calendars
- Isolated planning per vertical
- No streamlined way to collaborate
- No overview providing cross-department visibility
The solution
Adopt a shared master calendar for cross-departmental editorial planning. Organize it in departmental sections to provide a unified overview while still allowing each department to have their own “planning space.”
- Teamup’s scaleable sub-calendars can be color-coded and organized in folders to provide the perfect flexible structure for newsrooms.
2. Resource scheduling conflicts
The challenge
Teams often share resources like photographers, videographers, studio time, transportation, so on. Even within a team or department, shared resources are often in demand at the same time. When there’s no clear, quick way to check on resource availability, conflicts happen. The results can be significant, causing frustration with sources, missed opportunities, delays in production, and quality issues.
Why it happens
- Ad-hoc resource use rather than a clear booking system
- No real-time availability tracking
- Manual (error-prone) conflict prevention
The solution
Implement a centralized system for resource booking that can be used within and across departments, with clear, visual availability and automatic conflict prevention.
- Teamup can automatically prevent scheduling conflicts with a simple setting applied per sub-calendar. Unique calendar views show availability in a visual layout and self-booking is easy to set up.
3. Non-specific access control
The challenge
Keeping everyone informed across departments about editorial plans is important. But without customized access control, this scheduling unity can become scheduling chaos. Without granular permissions for individuals and groups, it’s often a case of too much access (anyone can edit anyone’s schedule, risking errors) or too little (teams can’t see what’s relevant).
Why it happens
- Calendar apps designed for individuals or single teams
- Permission options limited to “edit” or “view” without any granularity
- Access structure too rigid for complex workflows
The solution
Set up a calendar with granular permission levels that can be customized for each individual and group, and applied to specific departmental calendars as needed.
- Teamup’s nine levels of access permissions can be applied to selected sub-calendars individually, so users can view everything that’s relevant but change only what’s appropriate for their role.
4. Inconsistent story details
The challenge
Every published piece, whether it’s an in-depth feature or an online-only infographic, requires a lot of information. What the audience actually sees is only a small part. There’s metadata, interview transcripts, research sources, image permissions, and more that needs to stay attached to each piece. It’s important to make sure those details are consistent, and to keep them organized and findable for updates, repurposing, spinoffs, and archive accuracy.
Why it happens
- Haphazard information capture
- Details scattered across chat threads, emails, spreadsheets, and drafts
- No enforced data structure
- Lack of central, searchable repository
The solution
Newsrooms need a single source of truth for each story with customized information capture to ensure the necessary details are captured consistently.
- Teamup includes configurable and custom event fields with requirement options, visibility control, file uploads, and searchability.
5. Last-minute schedule changes
The challenge
Breaking news, important updates, or changing priorities mean that newsrooms need the ability to adapt the plan quickly. For editors, this means being able to quickly view the options, reshuffle assignments, and adjust resource allocation. If there’s not a quick, automated way to keep everyone updated in real-time, a single change can result in confusion, missed deadlines, and a big admin workload.
Why it happens
- Disconnected planning tools
- Manual updates across multiple apps
- No clarity for staff on where to get the latest information
- Limited mobile access to editorial planning details
The solution
Set up a unified calendar with real-time updates and full-featured mobile apps. Visual-first calendar layouts and filtering options make quick changes easier to manage.
- Teamup stays synced across all devices, with apps for iOS and Android, notifications, built-in filters, and multiple calendar views for visualizing information in the best way.
Challenge & solution summary
|
CHALLENGE |
SOLUTION |
| Duplicate or overlapping coverage | A single master calendar with folder/sub-calendar organization for a unified editorial overview. |
| Resource scheduling conflicts | Accessible, visible resource booking system with automatic conflict prevention. |
| Non-specific access control | Granular permissions that can be applied to individuals and/or groups within the larger organization. |
| Inconsistent story details | One place where all the information goes, with customizable capture, search, and attachments. |
| Last-minute schedule changes | A unified calendar, where all updates happen, with automatic notifications, syncing, and good mobile apps. |
Result: Efficient editorial planning
With a cohesive, organized scheduling system, the entire editorial process improves:
- Newsroom efficiency: Better coverage with cohesive big-picture planning.
- Clear resource availability: Self-booking and visual availability eliminates confusion or scheduling conflicts.
- Security and transparency: Granular permissions allow everyone to see what matters and change only what is appropriate for their role.
- Consistent information: Everyone knows where to go for story info. Details are consistent and archives are useful.
- Flexibility without chaos: Unified scheduling makes quick decisions possible; real-time updates keep everyone informed no matter where they are.
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