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Digital Production Checklist

  • Headline: The display headline is for NPR, Apple News and social; 85 characters max. Use full sentences, and only capitalize the first word and proper nouns. Guidance here.

  • SEO Title: Keyword-loaded for Google; 50-60 characters is ideal. Don't go over 65.

Pro tip!

🔑 Pro tip: Ask for a “headline WS” in #digital-promition and react with the headline-workshop emoji for help. Bring three ideas and a preview link to your story. Google Trends can also help pick keywords.

  • Permalink Text: Write a custom URL; this is some keywords separated by hyphens.

  • Teaser: 200 characters max. Good teasers are often like ledes — they can be understood when isolated from the headline.

  • Byline: Should go to a bio page.

Known issue!

This is how to handle duplicate bylines. If that doesn't help, file an IT ticket.

Images

  • Crop there are decent Wide and Square crops. It defaults, as it should, to Custom.

  • Copyright Type: It's for rights management, don't ignore it.

  • Caption: 399 characters max — check spellings, AP and Getty get stuff wrong!

  • Alt Text: Defaults to caption text, you can change it.

  • Credit: This is the photographer's name. You will likely need to move whatever is after the slash to …

  • Source: The agency or other org. You'll likely need to paste this in from the Credit.

Known issue!

You can't have a blank caption, credit or source field if the image has metadata for it. The best you can do is add an empty character. Here's how.

Body

  • Hyperlinks — Link related stories (ideally from NPR or member stations first, then others if needed) in your text.

Known issue!

  • Hyperlinks at the beginning of a paragraph make the rest of the paragraph disappear — sometimes.
  • Two hyperlinks in a row will squish together.

  • Promo Links: Find related stories in .org search, use NPR IDs (URLs work unless the story has a Seamus ID) to add links in Grove.

  • Subheads are H3 - Small Subhead. Subheads break up longer stories and help readers scan to find what they need.

Aggs

  • Primary Section: Is NOT News, Culture or Music. See below.

  • Secondary Sections: The correct parent topic — News, Culture and/or Music — will appear automatically on save, so don't add yourself.

  • NPR Stories for Apple News is a Secondary Section if the story should go to Apple News. That means no stories with responsive embeds.

  • Series: Set this if the story is part of a series.

  • Helper Collection: Is for tracking stories from your desk. Here's how to add them.

  • Tags: At least three. Heres's how to add them.

  • Preview your work at least once before hitting publish!

Publishing/Scheduling

When to publish: Publish breaking news ASAP. If it’s not breaking news or competitive and it’s after 5 p.m., most likely you can schedule it for the morning. You can use Google Trends to gauge when there might be search interest.

  • If you are publishing a DSP that has a DLP already published, set a Major Update for the timestamp the DSP should have.

  • Click Workflow button, then click Ready to Publish or Schedule.

  • Carefully preview your story before publishing or scheduling!

  • If it’s a backbuild, a major update or a podcast page that’s built out, share your story in #rss-todays-stories — these types of stories and updates do not automatically appear in that feed for promotion.

Channels + Contacts

  • #digital-assignments: Share when you are assigning digital stories so all desks know, and tag any desk that might have a conflict.

  • #digital-promotion: To flag for promotion, share updates to stories, headline workshops and answer any other questions.

  • #rss-todays-stories: Automated feed of all* published digital stories. Does not include backbuilds, story updates or podcast episode pages, so please manually post here if you have one of those. Please reply in a thread to keep the conversation in one place.

  • #digital-editors and #digital-best-practices: A general space for sharing best practices and asking questions.

🔑 Note: The below teams are not staffed 24/7, are very small and are more stretched for resources than ever. Please be patient with them, and tag in your teammates for help as well.

  • Homepage: @thenewshub-eds in #digital-promotion

  • Social + alerts: @engagement-eds in #digital-promotion.

  • Visuals help: #visuals-requests (monitored from 8am-6pm M-F).

  • Headline help: Ask for a “headline WS” in #digital-promotion and react with the headline-workshop emoji for help, and come with a few ideas and a preview of your story (monitored from 8am-6pm M-F).

  • Copy editing: We have very limited copy editing resources for digital stories (two copy editors, Preeti Aroon and Pam Webster). Not every story can be copy edited, so it is paramount that other editing resources on any given desk are used as needed. If you send a story to the copy edit email alias (digitalcopyedit@npr.org), there is no guarantee it will be copy edited. If a sensitive story or a project or graphic has been planned, please reach out to dhicks@npr.org to see whether a copy edit can be scheduled before publication.