Desk editor
Run a beat — manage monitoring, route reporters, review their drafts, keep the queue moving.
A desk editor owns a beat. Politics desk, tech desk, sports desk. Title-wise you're Desk editor; role-wise you're typically member with editorial assignment, or admin if you also manage monitoring rules.
What you do
Tune monitoring for your beat
Source selection and alert rules that match your beat's signal. Cut noise; surface what matters.
Route reporters
Assign drafts to reporters or pick them up yourself. Set priority for what's hot.
Review drafts
First pass on drafts from your reporters. Approve, reject, or annotate.
Coach
Reporters get better through your feedback. Annotations matter.
Escalate sensitive calls
When a sensitive-flagged draft sits at the edge of your judgement, route it up to the editor-in-chief.
Daily workflow
Filter the feed to your beat
Open the feed, filter by your beat's categories. The top of the filtered feed is your shortlist.
Review what's already in queue
/app/editorial filtered to your desk. Pick drafts your reporters submitted; review or annotate.
Pull stories from the feed when nobody has filed
Click into a story, compose, refine, submit (or self-approve if your role allows). Faster than waiting for a reporter to spot it.
Adjust monitoring as the beat moves
A story shifts from coverage to controversy; add a keyword rule. A region heats up; add tier 1 sources from there.
Hand-offs
End-of-shift: leave the queue clean. Annotations on outstanding drafts so the next desk editor knows what's what.
Reviewing as a desk editor
You see the same review surface as the editor-in-chief. The expectations are similar but lighter:
Read provenance fast
Source list, claim-level attribution, conflict markers, confidence read. Triage at speed.
Approve when it holds
If the draft is solid, ship it. Don't gold-plate.
Reject with notes
Reporters need feedback to improve. Always say what's wrong.
Escalate sensitive calls
If a sensitive-flagged story sits at the edge of your judgement, route up. Don't approve under uncertainty.
Monitoring rules to use on your beat
Match by category + keywords. Useful for: "alert me whenever there's coverage of [topic]".
Example: category = politics, keywords = EU summit, min sources = 2.
Min source count rules. Cuts noise from single-source rumours.
Example: min sources = 3, source tier ≥ tier 1.
Watch a specific list. Useful when you trust a few outlets and want to see anything they publish.
Example: sources = [Reuters, AP, AFP], alert mode = digest.
Breaking-only flag. Cuts background coverage; surfaces fast-moving stories.
Example: breaking-only = true, alert mode = instant, channels = [in-app, email].