Series
A series is a repeating format inside a newsroom. The newsroom owns the sources; each series decides which of those stories it takes, what shape the script takes, when it posts, where it goes and what it looks like.
Quizzes, Top 10s, a daily explainer: one newsroom, three series, one shared pool of articles.
The General series
Section titled “The General series”Every newsroom is created with a series called General. You didn’t make it; it exists so there’s always something to schedule.
Two things about it are worth knowing:
In the style modal, General doesn’t get its own tab; it’s folded into Newsroom default, because “the default series’ style” and “the newsroom’s style” are the same idea.
Adding one
Section titled “Adding one”+ Add series on the dashboard opens a small form: a name, script instructions, an optional source filter, and a Start running now toggle (off by default).
A new series inherits the newsroom’s schedule, distribution and style, so you only change what differs.
The three tabs
Section titled “The three tabs”Instructions
Section titled “Instructions”Free text, up to 4,000 characters, that tells the script generator how to shape every video in this series. It takes priority over the general style.
This is where a format gets defined:
This is a QUIZ series. Pose each quiz question aloud one at a time, build suspense, then tell viewers the answers are on our website. Do NOT reveal the answers in the video. End with a clear call to visit the site.
Source filter
Section titled “Source filter”How this series picks its stories out of the shared pool. Everything is optional; leave it all blank and the series accepts every article.
The basics
| Field | Separator |
|---|---|
| Match against: Title, Summary, URL | chips |
| Include keywords (any match) | commas |
| Exclude keywords | commas |
| URL path patterns (any match) | one per line |
Article structure: these read what the publisher already knows about an article, which is usually a better answer than its headline:
| Field | Separator |
|---|---|
| Publisher categories: must have one of these | commas |
| Publisher categories: must have none of these | commas |
| Authors (any match) | commas |
| Only these websites | commas |
| Title patterns (any match) | one per line |
| Title patterns to exclude | one per line |
Only these websites is more useful than it sounds: many feeds carry syndicated articles from partner sites, and this keeps a series to your own.
Title patterns are regular expressions matched against the headline. ^\d{1,2}\b
catches every numbered list (9, 11, 12), where the keyword 10 both misses
those and matches things like “2010”.
Smart matching
For what rules can’t express. Describe what belongs in the series and articles are sorted automatically, including the ones that never use the obvious word:
Quizzes and trivia: anything where the reader is asked to answer or score something, including “How well do you know…”, “Only Boomers will score 15/15…” and “Can you identify…”.
Four modes:
| Mode | |
|---|---|
| Rules, then smart matching | Rules decide what they can; the rest is read once and sorted. The default |
| Rules only | Nothing is ever read. Right when your categories already separate cleanly |
| Smart matching only | Everything judged against your description; exclusions still apply |
| Everything | No filtering at all |
Each article is read once and remembered, so this stays cheap.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”Per-series schedule and distribution: the same controls as the newsroom-wide ones, but scoped here, which is where they belong once you have more than one series.
The two preview panels, which disagree on purpose
Section titled “The two preview panels, which disagree on purpose”Under the source filter are two panels that look similar and answer different questions. This confuses people, so:
| Panel | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Recent articles in this series | What has this series actually collected over time, and what has it already used? Reads the accumulated ledger |
| Filter preview | How many of the last ~10 articles match these rules right now? Evaluates live |
Deleting
Section titled “Deleting”A series can be deleted once there’s more than one. Editory refuses to delete the last one: “Cannot delete the newsroom’s only series. Create another first.”