Drupal is looking more and more attractive as a replacement content management system for The Miami Hurricane‘s Web site. Our webmaster, Brian Schlansky, recently downloaded it and set it up on a virtual server on his laptop.
Here are some Drupal-related links:
- Newspapers on Drupal
- What can Drupal do for my newspaper site?
- Newspaper Sites with Drupal
- Now on Drupal HamptonRoads.com and PilotOnline.com
- Vanderbilt student media site opens up to the community » Invisible Inkling
College newspapers with Druapal (Media sites using Drupal):
- InsideVandy (Vanderbilt)
- The Hoya (Georgetown)
- Stony Brook Independent (Stony Brook University)
- Olivet College Echo Newspaper (Olivet College)
I’m going discuss Drupal’s settings and modules in greater depth with Brian and post my thoughts. Stay tuned.
Background: Drupal is a free, open-source CMS and used by other newspaper for their site management, so it definitely seems like a viable option. We currently use College Publisher, which doesn’t give us the freedom we would like and has been very frustrating recently.
Other CMS options I looked at:
- Ellington – a recommendation from Rick Hirsch, managing editor for multimedia at The Miami Herald. The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World and Naples News, both of which have great sites, use this. The features looked great, but it just wasn’t in our price range.
- Expression Engine – a recommendation from Kim Grinfeder, an assistant professor of visual journalism at UM. Looks nice, but isn’t geared so much towards news sites.
- Joolma – an open source platform similar to Drupal, but it didn’t stack up as well.
- Town News – used by The Independent Florida Alligator, which underwent a redesign during the summer. Looks like a good option, but has a price tag.
Weigh in: What CMS does your newspaper site use? Why is it good or bad?
