From Capitol Hill to the campaign trail, the Washington Examiner delivers breaking political news and conservative commentary to millions of readers nationwide.
Operating in a 24/7 news cycle where speed matters as much as accuracy, the Examiner needed a publishing platform capable of keeping pace. Partnering with Big Bite, the title set out to streamline editorial workflows, accelerate production, and give editors greater control over every story.
Built on WordPress, the Examiner’s CMS was already robust but needed greater flexibility to handle its high-volume political reporting. To achieve this, we integrated its existing setup with MediaPress – our advanced WordPress plugin developed for global publishers.
Editorial precision for a 24/7 news agenda
Designed specifically for fast-paced digital newsrooms, MediaPress delivers seven core capabilities that equip editors and journalists with the tools they need to work at speed, collaborate seamlessly, and maintain complete consistency.
Its Publication Checklist feature automatically ensures every article meets editorial standards before going live. Missing bylines, standfirsts, tags, or metadata are flagged instantly, reducing the chance of oversight and helping editors deliver polished, on-brand journalism under intense deadlines.
To further improve control, an enhanced Revisions system tracks every change to an article, from images and styles to metadata. Editors can compare versions side by side, restore previous drafts instantly, and review the full edit history, giving the team complete transparency over how each story evolves.
In addition, the toolkit’s Custom Fields functionality helps to standardise key metadata such as bylines, standfirsts, and SEO descriptions across thousands of articles. This consistency ensures the Examiner’s political reporting remains structured, optimised, and aligned with editorial guidelines, even in a 24/7 news cycle.
Driving engagement through richer storytelling
For a publication that relies heavily on visuals, the plugin’s Media Manager has been transformative. By creating a dedicated media library for each article, editors can organise assets more effectively and make rapid adjustments – such as cropping and resizing – without leaving the CMS. Producing image-rich, visually compelling stories is now faster, simpler, and more efficient.
Save Without Publishing plays a critical role in planning and timing updates, allowing embargoed stories, evergreen refreshes, and scheduled changes to be staged, reviewed, and published automatically when needed. Combined with Smart Linking, which lets editors surface related stories and insert them directly into articles without breaking their workflow, these features help the Examiner stay timely and keep readers engaged through a more connected reading experience.
The Examiner is also among the first publishers to adopt MediaPress’s new Authors feature. This capability supports multiple or guest contributors on a single story, automatically displays bios, job titles, and locations where relevant, and allows default authors to be set. By highlighting contributor expertise and adding depth to stories, the functionality helps the Examiner build stronger connections with its audience.
Boosting efficiency behind the scenes
In addition to integrating MediaPress, our team also developed a standalone feature to further enhance the Washington Examiner’s newsroom efficiency.
Editorial Comments, a feature designed to improve collaboration within the WordPress CMS, allows editors and writers to leave feedback directly on articles, making it easier to refine content quickly and accurately without resorting to external tools or long email threads. This has streamlined the review process significantly, ensuring that fast-moving stories are published with the right level of accuracy and editorial oversight.
Breaking news without bottlenecks
With MediaPress integrated into its CMS, alongside custom editorial features developed by enterprise WordPress agency Big Bite, the Washington Examiner can now cover breaking stories and complex political developments with far greater speed and control. The newsroom manages high volumes of content more efficiently, publishes updates as events unfold, and delivers stories that meet the highest editorial standards.
Beyond streamlining production, the improved setup gives the Examiner the flexibility to adapt coverage in real time, experiment with formats, and present political reporting in more engaging ways. By removing friction for editors and making it easier to surface the right stories at the right time, the enhanced CMS supports the Examiner’s goal of keeping readers informed as key events unfold, shaping political discourse across the United States.
