Writing stories
Everything the Story settings box adds to the post editor: credits, listicles, video, related stories and more.
The Story settings box in the post editor (News. Core) adds:
| Field | Effect |
|---|---|
| Kicker | Short overline above the headline (defaults to the category name). Keep it short — one or two words; longer kickers end with “…”. |
| Dek / sub-headline | Shown under the headline, in share previews and push notifications. |
| Premium story | Locked behind the paywall for readers without Premium. |
| Live coverage / Show in the LIVE ticker | LIVE badge; adds the story to the ticker and the Studio LIVE box. |
| Pin as front-page lead | The newest pinned story becomes the big lead of the Featured grid. |
| No ads on this story | For sensitive news or sponsored content. |
| Listicle / Count down / Contents box | See Listicles. |
| Send as push notification | See Push notifications. |
| Video URL / duration | YouTube link or .mp4 file shown at the top of the article. |
Image captions: News. → Articles controls whether the image title is shown before the caption.
Credits & sponsor (source / via)#
A second box in the post editor, Credits & sponsor (News. Core), is for disclosure that other news themes also keep on the story:
- Source — where the story came from (agency, outlet, report), with optional link.
- Via — who you found it through, with optional link.
- Sponsored — marks paid / branded content; optional label (default “Sponsored by”), sponsor name and URL.
Source and via print near the story body; a sponsored mark appears as a clear disclosure on the article. When you migrate from JNews or Newspaper, these fields are filled from the old theme’s equivalents. This is editorial credit — not Google Web Stories or AMP stories.
Listicles & contents box#
- Listicle: the H2 sub-headings get numbered badges, and a “In this list” box with jump links appears after the first paragraph. Count down numbers them 10 → 1.
- Contents box: the same box for any long article.
- News. → Articles → Automatic contents box: articles with at least this many H2 sub-headings (default 4) get the box automatically; 0 = only where switched on.
Headline on the article page#
Newsrooms often use a short headline on the front page and a longer one on the article. Write the short one as the normal title and the long one in Story settings → Headline on the article page. Front page, lists, search, sharing and search engines keep the normal title; the article, its sticky bar and the endless stream show the long one.
Video & floating video#
Featured image from the video: a story without a featured image but with a YouTube or Vimeo video (Story settings → Video URL, or a video in the text) gets the video picture as its featured image when you save it (News. → Articles, on by default; needs News. Core).
A video the reader started (YouTube, video file or an embedded video in the text) keeps playing in a small window in the bottom-right corner when they scroll past it, and returns when they scroll back — on desktop and tablet. Switch it off under News. → Articles → Floating video.
“Read also” and related stories#
Related stories are picked in this order: the stories you chose yourself in Story settings → Related stories (paste links or IDs, one per line), then stories with the most tags in common (last year), then the same section, then the latest. This feeds the “Read also” box in the text, “Read this too” under the article and the related block of feature stories.
News. → Articles → “Read also” in the text: on/off, after which paragraph, and one story with picture or a list of two to four. Switch it off for one story with No “Read also” box in its Story settings.
Pagination on category, tag, search and author pages#
News. → Category pages & search: for each kind of page choose page numbers (the first stories, a Load more button for the rest of the page, then 1 2 3 …), a Load more button that adds the next pages below, or endless scroll (up to five pages load by themselves, then the button shows so the footer stays reachable). The page links stay in the HTML, so search engines still find every page.
Below the article#
After the related stories, every article shows a stories block with the advertising rate card, then an endless stream of more stories. Set both up under News. → Articles → Below the article:
- Stories block: on/off, its heading (default “Business”), its category (empty = the category of the Business section on the front page), the number of stories (up to 12), how many days a story stays in the block (default 7, counted from the publish date; 0 = no limit) and whether the rate card is shown beside it. The block shows even with a single story — for example the only sponsor at the moment — and hides only when there is none. After its days are over a story leaves the block but stays on the site: in its category, in search and at its own address.
- Own end date per story: in the story’s Story settings → Stories block below articles: show until (News. Core). The story stays in the block until the end of that day, whatever the days setting says — handy when one sponsor books 3 days and another 14.
- Remove finished stories from the block category: when switched on, News. Core checks every hour and takes stories whose time is over out of the block category (e.g. Marketing), so it only holds running campaigns. It only does this for stories that also have another category (e.g. Business). While a story is in both, the theme always shows it under the other one, and never links to the block category.
- Endless stream: on/off and its heading (default “In other news…”, with a More news link to the latest stories). Leave the heading empty to hide it.
News Shorts#
Vertical videos — or photos — for the Shorts rail live in their own menu, News Shorts. Add a title, a featured image and optionally a video file with its duration. Without a video the short is shown as a photo. Landscape videos and photos get a soft glow of their own colors behind them in the full-screen viewer.