During a CMS Town Hall today, INMA and the Google News Initiative (GNI) announced new features to their CMS Vendor Selection Tool launched last year to help news media organisations sort through their options and find the right match for them. 

INMA Product & Tech Initiative Lead Jodie Hopperton, who moderated the town hall, asked how attendees feel about their current CMS. Nearly half said it could be improved, 26% said it needed to be changed ASAP, and only 11% said they “loved” their system.

That was a big change from last year’s response, Hopperton noted, when 21% said they loved their CMS and only 13% thought an immediate change was needed.

“What’s happened, everyone?” Hopperton asked with a laugh.
“It might be there’s been a lot of advancements and things have changed. And that’s why we wanted to stay up on this tool as well because we do know that over the past year, AI has played a huge part. We know a lot of efficiencies have been made.”

Hopperton outlined the process for reviewing vendors for the CMS Vendor Tool, explaining how the three-step process of identifying publisher needs, vendor analysis, and providing a publisher/vendor fit is designed to offer a neutral, honest appraisal of what options might best fit each user.

“This is not a certification nor a recommendation service. This should fit the criteria that you give and tell you who you should be evaluating,” Hopperton said, adding there’s no single “right” vendor for everyone; it’s a personal selection for each company.

Tony Byrne, president of Real Story Group, offered an analysis of the current CMS landscape for news organisations. He noted the complexity and diversity of the CMS market and said vendors were divided into several distinct groups based on their core strengths and target audiences.

He also emphasised the significant presence of WordPress in multiple categories, reflecting its widespread use and influence in the CMS market. The main thing to remember is the massive number of choices available, he said: “You’ll notice that these choices don’t fall on a neat spectrum; this is a multidimensional challenge for you.

“We’re super excited that we have this application that will help … simplify your choices [and] get you to a set of vendors that you can then test and explore more deeply.”

New additions for 2024

GNI’s Nicole Rocchio, lead of global news consumer insights, shared some updates to the selection tool this year. That has included the addition of five new vendors, vendor-reported updates for 2024, and the addition of third-party supported languages.

“With the rigorous methodology, the detailed questionnaires, demos, and reference checks, I really think that this is going to be as in-depth as possible for all of you to get the information and knowledge that you need to better pick what works best for you,” Rocchio said.

She walked through some of the new features showed how the tool can help companies narrow down the vendors that might be the right fit, and pointed out the comprehensive nature of the reviews. Rocchio encouraged publishers to “spend some time reading through all of them so that you can better understand what works the most or best for you as a publisher.”

Power of the (Word)Press

Many news organisations use WordPress, so Byrne also offered a session that looked at some considerations for using the best WordPress variants and plugins.

“With variants, you can go from simple and cheaper to more complex and expensive, but there’s also the additional dimension of a particular variant. There’s three or four here that focus specifically on news organisations, so you have a lot of choices.”

Byrne encouraged news media organisations to look at what variant, or bundle, provides the best fit.

“The key thing is to identify a set of critical attributes. For many of you, this is going to be around your technical expertise and your budget, but also things like your site traffic, new specific features,” he explained.

Part of the assessment is evaluating things like in-house technical expertise, budget, and traffic.

“These aren’t value judgements. This is really about your situation and where you are with respect to these particular dimensions.”

Attendees also heard from Ashley Harmon, chief of staff at Lookout Local in California, and MediaNews Group’s Tara Murphy and Bob Kirkemo, the senior director project management and senior director of software engineering, respectively, who shared their WordPress experiences. All offered examples of how they have used WordPress tools to improve operations.

Lookout Local uses WordPress’s Newspack platform to streamline its digital news operations and manage its newsletter and Web site content. It also uses plugins and campaigns to enhance user engagement and streamline operations, such as prompting newsletter sign-ups directly from published articles, Harmon said.

The flexibility of customisation offered by Newspack has been a game-changer, since the company has a small team with no IT department. WordPress allows them to quickly implement changes and test new ideas without the delays experienced with their previous CMS.

She said using it has not only reduced costs but also improved the ability to engage with readers through features like text-to-audio and targeted calls to action, ultimately supporting the company’s goal of expanding to new markets.

MediaNews Group uses WordPress extensively across its news operations to support over 100 news Web sites. The decision to adopt WordPress was driven by its robustness, ease of integration with third-party partners, and the vast ecosystem of community plugins, they said.

MediaNews Group has built custom features for its internal stakeholders while simplifying staff training due to the familiarity of the platform.

Additionally, the WordPress plugin and theme system lets MediaNews Group standardise its sites while allowing customisation through custom plugins for each newspaper, leading to quick Web publishing and content sharing across the entire network.

After Roccio demonstrated the tool, Hopperton encouraged members to visit inma.org/cms and explore it further.

“We know that the CMS is the core technology of your business,” Hopperton said. “It’s absolutely vital to get this right, and we hope we can save you some time, save you some mistakes, and really put you on the right path so you can spend more time looking at ones that may be suitable for you.”

About the tool and partnership

The new features unveiled today include:

• Analysis of an additional five vendors, bringing the total to 20.
• A CMS vendor landscape by capabilities and region.
• A tool for publishers to understand which variant of WordPress is the best fit, filterable by budget and technical expertise needed.
• A tool for publishers to understand available WordPress plugins with the ability to sort based on needs.

This first-of-its-kind tool was made available for free to the news media industry in October 2023 and is designed to help news media organisations understand which CMS vendors they may want to include in their shortlist, which specific features they provide, and direct feedback about the vendors from actual customers. 

“We’re pleased to once again work with GNI to add value for the industry, demystifying what could be a complex area for publishers,” said Earl J. Wilkinson, INMA executive director and CEO.

“We are incredibly excited to be part of this collaborative effort with INMA and RSG to update our CMS selection tool that empowers news publishers with the knowledge and resources they need to thrive in today’s dynamic media landscape,” said Nicole Rocchio, Google global news consumer insights lead. “This project reflects our shared commitment to supporting a vibrant and sustainable news ecosystem.” 

The free tool can be found at www.inma.org/cms.

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