Every story you broadcast now needs a web version. The Digital Article Creator converts your broadcast script into a polished, AP Style digital article — and flags every place where sourcing is incomplete.
Open Digital Article CreatorHere's the dirty secret of every station website: half the "articles" on it are air scripts somebody pasted into a text box. And it shows. Broadcast copy is written for the ear — short punchy fragments, no headline, references to video the reader can't see, "as you can see behind me" hanging there like a broken link. On a screen, read in silence, it's a script with no anchor — because that's literally what it is.
Digital readers need what print always needed: a headline that explains the story, a lead paragraph that stands alone, sentence case, attribution spelled out by name and title instead of "officials say." Numbers written for the eye, not the mouth — "4,200" instead of "42-hundred." Time references that survive past the broadcast — "Tuesday morning" instead of "this morning." It's not a harder story. It's a different language. And asking a broadcast journalist to switch languages at 11:35 p.m. after a two-hour show is how you get station websites that read like transcripts.
The Digital Article Creator does the translation in the direction nobody built tools for: broadcast to web.
Paste in your air script — the VOSOT, the package, the reader — and it rebuilds the story as an actual web article. Not reformatted. Rebuilt. A real headline written for search and for humans. A lead paragraph that stands on its own without video. Sentence case, full sentences, digital structure — short paragraphs, the facts ordered for a scanner's eye instead of a listener's ear. The spoken-language tics that make broadcast copy sing on air — and read like a transcript on a screen — get translated into the written conventions readers expect.
It handles the small mechanical translations you stop noticing until they're wrong: "42-hundred" becomes "4,200" again, because we're back in the world of the eye. Time references shift — "tonight" and "this morning" don't survive to a story someone reads three days later. And anything that leaned on the video — "as you can see," "take a look" — gets rewritten to carry the information in words, because on the web, the words are all there is.
The tool gives you two selectors before you run it. Content Type tells it what it's working with: Wire Copy, Reporter Script / Voiceover, Press Release, or Raw Facts / Notes — because the translation job is different for each one. Story Urgency (Immediate / Developing / Enterprise) shapes how the article is structured and what the lead emphasizes. A breaking story leads with the most time-sensitive fact; an enterprise piece leads with the frame. Two clicks, and the tool knows how to approach the work.
Then there's the feature I consider the most journalistically important in the entire suite: the [NEEDS SOURCE] flag. Broadcast scripts compress attribution — on air, "the county says" covers a lot of ground that a written article needs to spell out. So when the Creator builds the web version and hits a claim your script didn't fully support — a number without an origin, a statement that needs a named source — it doesn't guess. It flags it: [NEEDS SOURCE]. That flag is a requirement, not a suggestion. Every one gets sourced or cut before the story publishes. The tool also produces a detailed AP Style Notes panel alongside the article — covering Attribution & Sourcing, Grammar & Punctuation, AP Format Compliance, Structure & Flow, and Web Optimization — so you can see exactly what changed and why.
Who lives here? The producer who owes the web desk a version of everything in the A-block. The MMJ who shot it, wrote it, tracked it, and now has to publish it — the one-person band this tool was practically named for. The digital producer on nights and weekends, converting the whole show alone. And every newsroom where "put it on the web" is said by people who've never had to do it at 11:35 p.m.
What stays yours: the judgment. The tool doesn't know if the web version should lead differently for a story your market's been following all week, and it can't do the sourcing it flags. It builds the article. You make it journalism.
County press release: MILLBROOK COUNTY — The Millbrook County Department of Public Works is responding to a significant water main rupture that occurred at approximately 4:40 a.m. Tuesday beneath Route 9, resulting in the closure of a three-mile stretch of the roadway between Ashford Road and the county line. Approximately 4,200 residential and commercial customers are experiencing service interruptions, and a boil-water advisory has been issued for affected areas as a precautionary measure. Repairs are expected to be completed by Thursday.
Logged interview — Marcus Webb, Public Works Director (break site, 11:20 a.m.): :14 — "This is a sixty-year-old cast iron main. When they fail, they don't fail small." :52 — "We've got to excavate, replace the section, pressure-test it, and then the water itself has to be tested before we can tell anybody it's safe. That's why this runs to Thursday." 1:37 — "My crews will be out here around the clock. Nobody's going home until this is fixed."
Logged interview — Denise Calloway, homeowner (her kitchen, 12:45 p.m.): :22 — "First I knew about it was no pressure in the shower. Then the alert on my phone." 1:05 — "I've got a pot going pretty much all day now. Boil it, let it cool, fill the jugs. Do it again. It's like camping, except I'm in my own kitchen." 1:48 — "My mother's ninety-one and she lives with us. So no — I'm not taking any chances."
Nat sound: excavator at break site • water in trench • kettle whistling • county alert on phone • traffic at detour. Reporter notes: detour adds ~15 min • two restaurants closed • Denise's mom detail feels like the heart of this.
Water main break closes 3 miles of Route 9 in Millbrook County; 4,200 customers under boil-water advisory
MILLBROOK COUNTY — A major water main rupture beneath Route 9 early Tuesday shut down a three-mile stretch of the roadway and left about 4,200 residential and commercial customers with service interruptions, the Millbrook County Department of Public Works said.
The break happened about 4:40 a.m. Tuesday and forced the closure of Route 9 between Ashford Road and the county line, the department said. A boil-water advisory was issued for affected areas as a precaution, and repairs are expected to be completed by Thursday.
Public Works Director Marcus Webb said the ruptured line is a 60-year-old cast-iron main and the repair will take time because crews must replace the damaged section and complete multiple rounds of testing before the water can be declared safe.
"This is a sixty-year-old cast iron main. When they fail, they don't fail small," Webb said in an interview at the break site.
Webb said crews must excavate the area, replace the section and pressure-test it, and then test the water.
"We've got to excavate, replace the section, pressure-test it, and then the water itself has to be tested before we can tell anybody it's safe. That's why this runs to Thursday," he said.
Webb said crews will work continuously until the job is done.
"My crews will be out here around the clock. Nobody's going home until this is fixed," he said.
Residents in the affected area described disruptions to daily routines as they waited for service to be restored.
Denise Calloway, a homeowner, said she first realized something was wrong when she lost water pressure at home.
"First I knew about it was no pressure in the shower. Then the alert on my phone," Calloway said.
Calloway said she has been boiling water throughout the day to follow the advisory.
"I've got a pot going pretty much all day now. Boil it, let it cool, fill the jugs. Do it again. It's like camping, except I'm in my own kitchen," she said.
Calloway said she is being especially cautious because her 91-year-old mother lives with her.
"My mother's ninety-one and she lives with us. So no — I'm not taking any chances," she said.
[NEEDS SOURCE: The detour adds about 15 minutes.]
[NEEDS SOURCE: Two restaurants closed.]
Notice the flag in paragraph three — the air script said repairs would take until Thursday without sourcing the timeline, so the Creator built the sentence and marked the gap. That's the tool refusing to publish what the journalist hasn't confirmed.
What does [NEEDS SOURCE] mean — and can I just delete the flag?
It means the tool found a claim in the web version that your script didn't fully support, and instead of quietly guessing at attribution, it stopped and asked you. And no — deleting the flag without answering it defeats the entire point. Every flag gets one of two treatments: source it (add the attribution and remove the flag) or cut it (if you can't support the claim, it doesn't publish). Ninety seconds of sourcing per flag is the cheapest correction policy you'll ever buy. The flag isn't a criticism of your broadcast script — on air, compressed attribution is craft. On the web, it's a gap. The tool knows the difference.
Will the web version be good for search?
The headline is built for it — clear subject, key facts, the terms a person would actually type — and the structure follows what digital readers and search engines both reward: a strong standalone lead, scannable paragraphs, facts up high. What the tool won't do is stuff keywords or write the tabloid headline that gets clicks and costs credibility. Same rule as the Tease Writer, different platform: the promise the headline makes, the article keeps. Search engines have gotten very good at rewarding that.
My station has a CMS with its own formatting. Does this fight it?
No — the Creator hands you clean article text, and you paste it into whatever system your station runs. It's not trying to replace your CMS; it's replacing the twenty minutes of rewriting that happens before the CMS. There's no HTML export or direct-publish feature — just clean, ready copy that drops into any text field without fighting the formatting.