ClientJournalism non-profit

What I did for the publication

A journalism non-profit. They publish daily, and brought me on to modernise their WordPress block setup and bring the publishing flow into closer alignment with how their editorial team actually works.

What got deployed over the engagement:

• Hosting migration to a more robust setup with a proper staging environment.
• A modern block editor with custom blocks designed around their specific publishing patterns.
• A smoothed-out social publishing workflow so social posts deploy cleanly from the same content flow.
• Each new feature deployed with a short Loom walkthrough. This was a much more direct way to communicate ideas clearly.

How it helped the team

Every editor on the publication team had their own unique take on how to lay out an article, the editorial control they wished to exert over the finished piece. By rebuilding blocks around their wishes, which I'd note down during our regular video calls, I could ensure that the publishing flow stopped being something they had to push back against and could start enjoying. The result was a more efficient and effective publishing pipeline for the team.

Why this kind of engagement works

The publication's editorial team wanted a lot of control over their articles. WordPress is very capable, but needs control and configuration to enable more powerful tools.

How I would describe working together

Weekly editorial-team calls anchored the engagement. The team brings what is in front of them; we triage, agree on the next slice of work, and deploy it. No long quarterly plans, no surprise invoices. The relationship has the same shape as a senior in-house engineer who happens to work async from Edinburgh.