A New Home Devoted to Saving the American Political Discourse
1
The Background
With American politics more divided than ever, The New Center asked Code and Theory to create a home for the foundation’s editorial mission.
“The alternative to a coherent and effective New Center is a degree of public discontent that could end by undermining democratic self-government itself. For the sake of liberal democracy and republican self-government, we should take Lincoln’s words to heart. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
2
The Challenge
While The New Center team is comprised of experienced political thinkers and strategists, a venture into publishing was a new challenge for the political venture.
To allow them to focus on their mission of promoting common sense solutions for shared challenges, Code and Theory designed a publishing workflow tuned for simplicity.
3
The Solution
The publishing system offered powerful aggregation and storytelling tools to users who were new to the publishing environment.
Because The New Center “aims to establish the intellectual basis for a viable political center in today’s America,” the new website had to be designed for two core needs:
1. The creation and promotion of impactful, influential original content.
2. Expert aggregation of mainstream news and opinion that "helps people see common sense solutions to the problems we face."
While some sections of the site were wholly dedicated to aggregation, other areas might feature original New Center content side-by-side with news from other outlets.
Because so much of the real estate on The New Center site would be devoted to sending visitors to other news websites, Code and Theory placed special emphasis on differentiation and emphasized the clarity of sourcing and topics.
The Ambition of The New Center’s Mission Was Matched Only by its Aggressive Time to Market
In order to meet the New Center’s goal of launching around the 2018 midterm elections, Code and Theory took an extremely agile and collaborative approach. While we were rapidly prototyping and iterating designs, as well as seamlessly coordinating with multiple development teams, The New Center editorial team prepared to release its first major white paper.
4
The Results
Shortly after launch, as well as the publication of its first policy memo, The New Center garnered coverage in multiple major publications including, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The National Review.
An efficient workflow also allowed the New Center team to aggregate a high volume of relevant news at great speed. This ensured new users who came to the site via media coverage found it credible and authoritative.
