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The journalist's guide to automating curation

By Justin Pot · September 9, 2019
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Modern journalism is digging through piles of information and finding the one or two interesting tidbits you can turn into a story. Good ideas live in all sorts of different places: some you find using Twitter, Google News Alerts, or your RSS reader. Some you find out about from your co-workers, possibly on Slack. And occasionally one of the (approximately) ten million press releases and pitches emailed to you daily by soulless marketers are (somewhat) interesting.

Ideally all of the actually useful bits of information would live in one place, so you could reference them all easily. Think of it as an idea bucket. Where your bucket lives doesn't matter: note taking applications like Evernote and OneNote work quite well, but so does a spreadsheet, a Trello board, a to do list app. The point is to collect article prompts all in one place, so you can find them when it's time to write.

You could do this by manually copying and pasting information, and in my experience most journalists do. This works, but is time consuming, which is why I want to show you how you can automate this kind of curation using Zapier.

How Zapier (and automation) will help you

Zapier gives you the power of automation without expecting you to become a programmer. You can automatically send information from one app to another, using rules you set up yourself. We call these automations Zaps.

How does this help you, a journalist, keep track of potential article ideas? Because you can set up separate rules to send ideas to one central repository, which you can then reference when it's time to write.

Let's go over a few ideas for automating curation. I'll include links to guided templates for each idea, but don't let those templates limit you. You can [build your own Zap] and send any of the information mentioned to whatever application you prefer.

Save Twitter favorites

Twitter is the firehose that all journalists are seemingly required to drink from, even though most of it is very bad. It's easy to scroll through your timeline and forget about the couple of good things you found that might be useful for an article later.

With Zapier you can save the actually good tweets for later just by clicking the like button. You could, for example, automatically send every tweet you like over to Evernote.

Again, you don't have to use Evernote—that's just an example. The idea is to save your liked tweets somewhere so you can reference them later. Set this up, scroll through Twitter like you usually do, and only hit "Like" for posts you might want to reference later. It's a way to filter the firehose down to the bits that matter.

Save starred emails

I know: Most of the press releases you get are garbage. Occasionally they're useful, however, and it's good to file those away somewhere before they disappear in the ever growing unholy mess that is a reporter's inbox. With the right automation you could send Starred emails in Gmail over to your idea bucket. For example, you could send them to Evernote or Trello.

Add new starred Gmail emails to Evernote

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    When you're busy performing inbox triage, it helps to stay focused so you can reach inbox zero. With a single click, this Gmail-Evernote integration can set things up for when you're ready to deal with those important messages later. It will trigger with every new email you star on Gmail, sending the details to Evernote and automatically creating a new note with the contents, ready for action when you are.

    Create Trello cards from new starred Gmail emails [Business Gmail Accounts Only]

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      If you're constantly adding cards to Trello for new tasks in your inbox, use this Gmail Trello integration to cut down the steps. Once this integration is in place, simply star an email in your Gmail inbox and a new Trello card is created automatically.

      Now you can quickly reference the emails that actually looked interesting, without having to dig through the 200 emails you got while reading this single sentence.

      Save Slack messages

      Slack is another service that becomes overwhelming quickly. If you want to remember the insightful bits and links your co-workers share, you can. Just set up an automation that sends them over to your idea bucket of choice.

      For example, you could send starred posts to Evernote, Trello, or Todoist.

      Create new notes on Evernote when new messages are saved on Slack

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        The faster your conversation moves, the harder it is to develop on important points. With Zapier and this Slack-Evernote integration on your side, you'll be able to tackle everything on your own time: just save a message on Slack and we'll automatically create a new note on Evernote for each one.

        Append new saved Slack messages to a note on Evernote

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          Searching for the same messages over and over again is counter-productive. Automate your workflow by using this Slack-Evernote integration. Set it up and all you need to do is save those important messages on Slack; Zapier will send each to Evernote and append it to a note in response. Keep every great comment and idea in one place!

          Create Trello cards from new saved Slack messages

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            Slack is where your team doles out tasks. Trello is where you manage personal tasks. To create new cards in Trello right from Slack, simply set up this integration. Once it's in place, each newly-saved Slack message will automatically create a Trello card.

            Set this up and you can quickly save messages to reference for later just by starring them, which is far better than those ideas disappearing forever in the never ending stream of "hilarious" jokes sent by your co-workers.

            Save Feedly articles

            RSS might be old school, but it's still the best way to stay on top of several different publications at once, and many government organizations offer RSS feeds for announcements and press releases.

            Zapier can connect to Feedly, and a few other RSS readers, allowing you to send articles you favorite or tag over to other programs. For example, you could send articles that you save in Feedly to a channel in Slack or a notebook in Evernote.

            Share Feedly saved articles in Slack

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              Need a simple way to share the best articles from Feedly with your team in Slack? Setup this Zapier integration, then every time you save an article in Feedly, Zapier will automatically send a new message in Slack. Now all of your articles are in one place and your team can stay informed of what you're reading.

              Save new Feedly articles you like to Evernote

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                Need to curate a list of content to save for later? Enter this integration, which lets you automatically save articles you like in Feedly directly to Evernote, with a little help from Zapier automation.

                Save any website you find with the Zapier Chrome extension

                Zapier works with 1,500 apps, but that's not every website on earth. The Zapier Chrome extension allows you to send the name and URL of the site you're currently browsing over to any application we support. It's like a bookmark button that sends articles and websites to your idea bucket.

                For example, you could quickly make a Trello card or Evenote note using the name and URL of any website you have open in Chrome.

                Create custom Trello cards with the Zapier Google Chrome extension

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                  Use this Zap to create Trello cards straight from a Google Chrome Extension. Input the text you want into the Chrome extension and Zapier will automatically create a Trello card for you. That way, you won't evef have to stop what you are doing in order to create a Trello card.

                  Add new text notes to Evernote from a Google Chrome extension

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                    Want to save a new note to Evernote without using the Evernote Web Clipper? Perhaps you've thought of something you'd like to remember, or want to copy something from an app you have open in Chrome. Just set up this Zap, and you can type that text into Zapier's Chrome extension and have it saved as a new note in Evernote automatically.

                    It's a great way to remember those websites you find while researching a story.

                    These are just a few ideas

                    This is all just a starting point. Automation lets you funnel all kinds of information to your idea bucket, all without much work on your part. It's a great way to separate the wheat from the chaff, so you can find those compelling bits of information when it's time to actually write something.

                    Looking for more? Check out these Zapier resources:

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