Techniques for using Slack to improve newsroom collaboration
Laura Hazard Owen, Nieman Lab,This article shares some examples of how several digital-first newsrooms are integrating the real-time messaging app Slack into their publishing workflow:
- Quartz uses an “assignments” channel for transparency into what everybody is working on and a “production” channel for stories to be edited. (They also stress the importance of grooming to manage channel sprawl.)
- Vox Media employs a Slack bot to report when a story is published and by whom.
- Slate has a channel called “headlines and framing”, where anyone can ask for feedback on headline ideas. (Many other news organizations have this as well.) They also have a “whereabouts” channel where staffers can let the team know where they are, and a breaking news channel where anything posted automatically pings the responsible on-call editors.
- Thought Catalog encourages staff to disable notifications in Slack, which can be a frequent distraction if not managed well.