What has Melody changed in the editorial offices of France-Antilles? Answer with Cyril Boutier, editorial director, who looks back at how the tool was implemented within the daily newspaper. His leitmotiv? Fluidity and reactivity!
How did the deployment of Melody go at
France-Antilles?
With great fluidity! We switched to Melody in September 2021. We were leaving a rather complicated editorial system... It was the simplicity of using Melody that immediately appealed to us. The interface is very user-friendly and ergonomic. This ergonomics was essential, our editors being rather formatted for print.
What did they like right away?
They found Melody to be very intuitive and were able to get up to speed quickly. Our previous system required a lot of manipulation to publish a text. With Melody, they can very easily edit to different channels, create articles, add photos, link any sidebars to the main text... It is also possible to take papers made for the web and transform them into articles for print - and vice versa, by removing or adding photos. In addition, we have gained general visibility on page imposition, which we didn't have before. Editors, editorial secretaries, prepress: everyone can see where we are.
"The Melody teams
have always been very
reactivity despite the
the time difference".
How did the Melody team support you in these changes?
In the training of the teams, first of all, since it was provided by Melody in person. In the switchover, then, obviously. And still today, in our daily operations: until very recently, our Martinique edition was printed in Guadeloupe, which generated particular problems of closure. But Melody's teams have always been very reactive despite the time difference. They have been present and attentive to our needs, even in an emergency, regardless of the time. Today, if we have a problem, we go through the technical support. But during the first few weeks, we were assisted directly by Didier Madeleine and Bruno Génuit.
How does Melody facilitate bi-media?
With us, everything that is done on the print is automatically exported to the web overnight. The next morning, all the papers of the print edition are available on our site, free or paid. But we also create stories for print or web exclusively. Some of them start with a short story for the website, which we will adapt into a more developed version for the print edition. Melody makes all these adaptations very easy. A writer can work on a small 1500-signature subject with a photo to give the essential information and, in a few clicks, with Melody, create the print version of this text. He can expand it, add a practical information box, a small testimonial... Of course, it works both ways.
"Our editorial secretaries have found their role again"
Melody has also revolutionized your layout work...
Yes, Melody saves us a lot of time. Our editorial secretaries have regained their original role and can devote themselves to proofreading, rewriting, titling... Previously, they had a lot of manipulations to do, manipulations that were the work of a layout artist. They wasted time applying style sheets. In Melody, we work with "cards". These cards, as well as our mock-up, have been previously configured and prepared with the Melody team. As a result, our SRs are much more efficient on all pages with a simple layout. And they can, at the same time, free up more time to create some others in a more magazine-like spirit: sports pages, culture pages...
What if I need to create a new section?
Nothing could be simpler: the Melody team has trained graphic administrators from among our prepress staff. These graphic administrators are completely autonomous in creating new cards for us. However, if we have a problem with a particular layout, Melody can also give us a hand. We are not left in the wild!
If you had to summarize Melody in three words?
Simplicity. Accompaniment. Reactivity!
