Survey of CMS Usage on Newspaper Websites

As of this month, 25 percent of all websites are using WordPress, according to W3Techs survey. This ubiquity was one of the leading factors in choosing WordPress as the platform for Snowball. Of course Snowball’s main target are news organizations and journalism students, which raises the question of how closely this general 25 percent figure tracks with newspaper websites.

It turns out, not much at all.

Collecting the Data

To survey CMS usage among newspaper websites, I analyzed the websites of the top 100 newspapers in North America according to 4IMN, which ranges from the New York Times to the Knoxville News-Sentinel. I also took a look at websites for 100 exemplary college newspapers, based on a list from the Journalism Degrees blog with the substitution of Drexel University’s The Triangle (gotta represent!). The analysis was done in November 2015.

To determine the CMS run by each website, I used several online tools including BuiltWith, WhatCMS, and CMS Detector.

When these tools didn’t suffice, I fell back to manual inspection and online research. In a number of cases, this was still not enough.

The Results

Among the top newspaper websites, WordPress is the most identified CMS, though at 11% it’s less than half the general rate. The rest of the numbers reveal a balkanized landscape. Drupal is the next most common, followed by 20 other different CMSes. For the remaining 62 websites, the CMS could not be identified. These “others” might be using yet another CMS platform or a custom solution, but we can be reasonably confident that they’re not using WordPress.

I’m somewhat surprised at the low figure for WordPress. Perhaps this is due to news orgs being entrenched with legacy systems, having very particular business needs, or fear of open source. WordPress is best known for its ease of use, but it has also proven its mettle with a number of world-class news websites.

The numbers for college newspapers show a very different picture. WordPress makes up a full 68%! This is followed by Blox, Gryphon, Drupal, etc. WordPress dominates a much more homogeneous scene.

This supports our argument that building Snowball as a WordPress plugin is the most effective way to reach a large audience of active journalism students.

As a next step, it would be interesting compare small newspapers to these two groups, but I haven’t found a good way of identifying these yet.

Appendix

Here’s the raw data used to calculate these numbers. If you can provide any information on the missing data points, please reach out.

Top Newspapers

Newspaper	CMS
The New York Times	Other
The Washington Post	WordPress
USA Today	Gannett CMS
The Wall Street Journal	Other
Los Angeles Times	Other
The Examiner	Drupal
Daily News	Atex PoloPoly
Chicago Tribune	Other
The Globe and Mail	WordPress
New York Post	WordPress
Houston Chronicle	Other
The Hollywood Reporter	Drupal
The Christian Science Monitor	eZ Systems
The Toronto Star	Adobe CQ
The Boston Globe	Other
The Chicago Sun-Times	Other
The Washington Times	Other
The Philadelphia Inquirer	Other
The Onion	Other
San Jose Mercury News	WordPress
The Denver Post	Other
Star Tribune	Other
The Dallas Morning News	Other
The Seattle Times	WordPress
The Oregonian	Other
National Post	WordPress
Newsday	Atex PoloPoly
The Miami Herald	Other
The Baltimore Sun	Other
The Plain Dealer	Other
The Sacramento Bee	Other
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette	Other
The Hill	Drupal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution	Other
Detroit Free Press	Other
Orlando Sentinel	Covide
Boston Herald	Drupal
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel	Other
The New York Observer	WordPress
South Florida Sun-Sentinel	Other
The Kansas City Star	Drupal
Seattle Post-Intelligencer	Other
The Vancouver Sun	Other
St. Louis Post-Dispatch	Other
The Orange County Register	OpenCMS
Deseret News	Other
The News & Observer	Other
Salt Lake Tribune	Other
Hartford Courant	Mezzanine
Express-News	PencilBlue
Toronto Sun	Angel LMS
The Montréal Gazette	WordPress
The Buffalo News	Eduwave
The San Diego Union-Tribune	Other
Times Union	Other
The Indianapolis Star	Other
Investor’s Business Daily	Other
The Tennessean	Other
Ottawa Citizen	WordPress
The Charlotte Observer	Other
The Record	Other
Las Vegas Sun	Other
The Tampa Tribune	Other
St. Paul Pioneer Press	Other
The Des Moines Register	Other
The Oklahoman	Other
Calgary Herald	WordPress
Contra Costa Times	Other
Austin American-Statesman	Other
Las Vegas Review-Journal	Other
The Daily Princetonian	WordPress
Fort Worth Star-Telegram	Other
The Morning Call	Other
The Patriot-News	Other
The Palm Beach Post	Other
Daily Herald	Other
The Republican	sNews
Anchorage Daily News	OneTool
The Province	Other
The Courier-Journal	Stiqr
Edmonton Journal	WordPress
The Spokesman-Review	Other
The Detroit News	Other
The Florida Times-Union	Other
Los Angeles Daily News	Other
Winnipeg Free Press	SchoolWires Centricity
Metro	IronPoint
Star Advertiser	Other
The Press-Enterprise	Drupal
Daily Press	JoomD
The State	Other
Omaha World-Herald	Other
The News Tribune	Other
Democrat and Chronicle	Other
Chicago Reader	CiviCRM
Miami New Times	Other
The Blade	Other
Sarasota Herald-Tribune	Other
The Wichita Eagle	Other
News-Sentinel	Liferay

College Newspapers

Newspaper	School	CMS
The Lantern	The Ohio State University	WordPress
The Daily Aztec	San Diego State University	WordPress
The Daily Gamecock	University of South Carolina	Gryphon
The Anchor	Rhode Island College	WordPress
The Oxford Student Online	University of Oxford	WordPress
Cardinal Points	Plattsburgh State University College	WordPress
The Guardian	University of California, San Diego	WordPress
The Daily Titan	California State University, Fullerton	WordPress
The Heights	Boston College	WordPress
The Post	Ohio University	Blox
The Vermilion	University of Louisiana at Lafayette	WordPress
NYULocal	New York University	WordPress
Clarion	University of Denver	WordPress
The State Press	Arizona State University	Gryphon
The Houstonian	Sam Houston State University	WordPress
The Daily Iowan	University of Iowa	WordPress
The Minaret	University of Tampa	WordPress
CU Independent	University of Colorado	WordPress
Minnesota Daily	University of Minnesota	Drupal
The Hawks’ Herald	Roger Williams University	WordPress
Old Gold & Black	Wake Forest University	WordPress
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter	John Hopkins University	WordPress
The Famuan	Florida A&M University	Other
The Campbell Times	Campbell University	WordPress
The Vermont Cynic	The University of Vermont	College Publisher
Student Life	Washington University	WordPress
The Spectrum	North Dakota State University	WordPress
The Sentinel	Kennesaw State University	WordPress
Daily 49er	California State University, Long Beach	WordPress
The Telescope	Palomar College	WordPress
The Herald	Arkansas State University	Blox
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Racquet	University of Wisconsin-La Crosse	WordPress
The State Press	Arizona State University	Gryphon
The Kenyon Collegian	Kenyon College	WordPress
Central Florida Future	University of Central Florida	Gannett CMS
The Daily Reveille	Louisiana State University	Blox
The GW Hatchet	George Washington University	WordPress
Los Angeles Loyolan	Loyola Marymount University	Blox
The Advance-Titan	UW-Oshkosh	Blox
The Berkeley Beacon	Emerson College	Other
Flyer News	University of Dayton	WordPress
The Triangle	Drexel University	WordPress
The Chronicle	Duke University	Gryphon
The Georgetown Voice	Georgetown University	WordPress
The Emory Wheel	Emory University	WordPress
The Ball State Daily News	Ball State University	Gryphon
Iowa State Daily	Iowa State	Blox
Royal Purple News	University of Wisconsin-Whitewater	WordPress
The Bona Venture	St. Bonaventure	WordPress
The Chaparral	College of the Desert	WordPress
The Shorthorn	UT-Arlington	Blox
The Chicago Maroon	University of Chicago	WordPress
Central Michigan Life	Central Michigan University	Gryphon
The Commonwealth Times	Virginia Commonwealth University	WordPress
The Daily Barometer	Oregon State University	Blox
The Daily Californian	UC Berkeley	WordPress
The Daily Orange	Syracuse University	WordPress
The Daily Tarheel	University of North Carolina	Gryphon
The Daily Texan	University of Texas at Austin	Drupal
Daily Trojan	University of Southern California	WordPress
The Daily	University of Washington	Blox
The Daily Eastern News	Eastern Illinois UniversitySchool:	WordPress
The Daily Mississippian	University of Mississippi	WordPress
Campus Times	University of Rochester	WordPress
The Battalion	Texas A&M	Blox
The Daily Cougar	University of Houston	WordPress
The Stanford Daily	Stanford University	WordPress
The Cornellian	Cornell College	WordPress
The Tech Online Edition	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Other
The Pendulum	Elon University	WordPress
The New Perspective	Carroll University	WordPress
The Rensselaer Polytechnic	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	WordPress
The Louisville Cardinal	University of Louisville	WordPress
Spartan Daily	San Jose State	WordPress
The Fine Print	Gainesville Florida	Blox
The Pitt News	University of Pittsburgh	WordPress
The Daily Cardinal	University of Wisconsin-Madison	Blox
The DePaulia	DePaul University	WordPress
The Exponent	Purdue University	Blox
The Dartmouth	Dartmouth College	WordPress
Yale Daily News	Yale University	WordPress
The Brown Daily Herald	Brown University	WordPress
The Daily Pennsylvanian	University of Pennsylvania	Gryphon
Columbia Spectator	Columbia University	Drupal
The Harvard Crimson	Harvard University	Other
The Cornell Daily Sun	Cornell University	WordPress
Fourth Estate	University of Wisconsin – Green Bay	WordPress
The Diamondback	University of Maryland	Blox
The Tech Talk	Louisiana Tech University	WordPress
The Temple News	Temple University	WordPress
The Sentry	Robert Morris University	WordPress
The Michigan Daily	University of Michigan	Drupal
The News	Murray State University	WordPress
The Argonaut	University of Idaho	WordPress
The Arka Tech	Arkansas State University	WordPress
The Bucknellian	Bucknell University	WordPress
The Rebel Yell	University of Nevada Las Vegas	WordPress
Luther College Chips	Luther College	WordPress
The Colonnade	Georgia College & State University	WordPress
The Concordian	Concordia College	WordPress