Publisher Insight
How to Create a Web Style Guide for a Newsroom
A concise style guide helps reporters and editors publish consistently across desks, formats, and language editions.
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Which rules should the guide cover?
Set conventions for headlines, capitalization, names, places, dates, numerals, quotations, abbreviations, link text, captions, credits, and corrections. Explain how opinion, sponsored, analysis, and reported content are labeled.
Keep rules specific to digital presentation. Include how editors write for search snippets, mobile layouts, live updates, newsletters, and social cards without changing the meaning of the reporting.
How can standards fit the CMS?
Map each rule to a field, template, checklist, or editor action. If a credit is required, place the field beside image selection; if an update note is needed, provide a clear route for recording it.
Use validation for information that must be present, but do not let mechanical checks replace editorial review. A CMS should make the correct action easier without pretending it can judge the reporting.
How should language editions be handled?
Provide language-specific guidance for spelling, transliteration, punctuation, names, honorifics, date formats, and style decisions. Name an editor for each edition and document which terms should remain consistent across teams.
Allow local editors to adapt headlines and examples where a direct translation would be unclear. Connect equivalent stories where useful while keeping each edition’s byline, URL, and metadata accurate.
How do teams keep the guide current?
Assign an owner, show the revision date, and make the guide searchable from the newsroom workspace. Ask editors to propose changes when repeated questions or corrections reveal an unclear rule.
Review the guide after major product, policy, or audience changes. Remove obsolete advice and tell staff what changed so the reference remains useful during a busy shift.
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