What CNET’s redesign has meant for copyeditors, reporters and editors

UNC-Chapel Hill journalism professor Andy Bechtel interviewed Dawnthea Price Lisco, a copy editor at tech news site CNET, about her job and her role in the site’s recent redesign.

Here is an excerpt:

Q. CNET recently underwent a significant redesign. What do those changes mean for you and other writers and editors there?

A. This is such a lucky question specifically for me! CNET’s relaunch went live in late April, and as part of that team, I was user-testing some of those features — including our hot new homepage, which is now fully curated by a small team to better showcase CNET’s depth and breadth. (Before, only Above the Fold was regularly curated.)

Things have actually fairly radically changed for me, in part because I was so involved with the actual redesign: There have been some Technical Challenges, as usual, so the primary homepage planning is done by a smaller-than-usual team at present until we can confidently say everything’s ready for more cooks in the kitchen.

I’ve been keeping more running dialogues with editors to ensure that homepage plans align with what readers want and also with what editors want promoted. But CNET’s curation plans are already showing promising returns, and I have the utmost confidence in our overall strategy as we continue to fine-tune it.

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