WORDPRESS FOR A "NEWS" SITE?
WordPress just seems to be getting better and better all the time. Like Joomla!, WordPress is free and there is plenty of online community support.
Like many people, I thought that WordPress only produced sites that look like blogs. In fact designers have been coming up with templates that look like news sites for ages (and really sexy-looking news sites as well). Perfect for any small business, charity or university student project.
SOME GOOD WORDPRESS TEMPLATES FOR NEWS SITES:
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT WORDPRESS FOR NEWS SITES:
- I use WordPress for a site that is used by Level 1 students. It allows me to introduce students to the idea of the CMS and how information is organised online.
- WordPress allows multiple users
- The Wordpress interface is far more intuitive than Joomla! (more on that later).
- Like Joomla! it has loads of great extensions/ add-ons / widgets - whatever you want to call 'em!
WHAT'S NOT-SO-GOOD
- Poor categorisation - WordPress only has a shallow hierarchy for organising stories. You can file stories into main categories, but that's about it. I don't believe (and I could be wrong) there is not the deep level of sub-categories you get in Joomla!
- Adding sections to the navigation bar - This involves a trip into 'template manager' and you need to make changes to the code. In this area, one tiny slip or mistake and you are sunk. In Joomla!, it's very easy to adjust menus headings using menu manager.
- Manage Posts in WordPress is weak - compared to article manager in Joomla! You can't sort posts or unpublish through this manage posts section (you have to go into each article - correction. This is now solved). When you have hundreds of posts and you need to locate some information, this can be a problem!
Links:
Creating a student journalism site on a tight budget - using WordPress to create a news site.
NewsWire.NZ - what can be achieved using a fantastic Wordpress template.
WordPress a CMS for Journalists (Andy Dickinson)
