FISM Newsroom 6.20.2

A production WordPress newsroom and media-center experience for Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries. It turns an existing press-release content model into an accessible, searchable editorial surface for press releases, interviews, op-eds, appearances, and media resources.

View the live newsroom

Engineering highlights

• Accessible search, filters, pagination, focus states, and reduced-motion behavior
• Responsive editorial card system with consistent content rhythm
• Existing WordPress post-type integration without a destructive data migration
• External artwork extraction and resilient media handling
• Producer-focused press kit with optional downloadable assets
• Performance-conscious CSS marquee with no JavaScript animation loop

Technology

PHP, WordPress hooks and shortcodes, JavaScript, CSS, semantic HTML, responsive design, and accessibility-focused interaction states.

Detailed release notes

Presentation rebuild. The thumbnail extraction pipeline, pagination, search and filtering logic from 5.8.0 are untouched — only the UI/UX layer changed.

Who this is designed for

Primary audience is Financial Issues supporters and viewers, who skew 55+. Secondary audience is producers and bookers arriving from an outlet. Every decision below follows from that.

What changed

Reading order fixed. The hero now runs eyebrow, headline, lede, actions. Search and the type filters moved out of the hero and now sit directly above the results they control. Previously the sentence explaining the page rendered below the search box and filter buttons.

Type scale rebuilt. 56 / 32 / 22 / 20 / 18 / 15 / 13. The H1 dropped from 102px to a 56px cap, and card titles rose from 18px to 22px. There is now a real middle to the scale, so section headings sit under the page title instead of competing with it.

Contrast corrected. The brand gold (#EA9A32) measures about 2.3:1 on the cream ground and was being used for text. It is now structural only — rules, active underlines, focus rings. Type labels use a darkened gold (#8A5410) and navy, both above 5.9:1. Body copy is 18px minimum at 7:1 or better.

Card dead space removed. Cards were locked to 500px, leaving 73–97px of empty space above every date. Cards now size to content and excerpts clamp to exactly three lines, so every card in a row ends the same way.

Controls enlarged. Buttons and pagination are 52px, filters and the search clear are 48px+, and the search field is 56px. Every interactive element has a visible focus ring.

Filters read as editorial. Bordered white boxes replaced with text tabs and a gold underline on the active one, matching the site's own navigation.

Featured In is a continuous marquee. Arrows gone. The track renders the logo set twice and slides exactly half its width, so the loop is seamless with no JavaScript driving it. Edges are feathered with a CSS mask so logos enter and leave rather than getting chopped. It pauses on hover, on keyboard focus, and via a quiet pause button — auto-moving content needs a stop that does not depend on hover, which keyboard and touch users do not have. Under prefers-reduced-motion it does not move at all and falls back to a wrapped static row. Logos normalised to 42px optical height, left in full colour.

Cards are one contained surface. Artwork sits flush inside the card and the card clips the corners, so the image and the text read as a single object rather than two things stacked on the page background. 14px radius, hairline border, and a 1px resting shadow that lifts to a soft 32px on hover. Hover also scales the artwork 4% and wipes a gold underline across the headline. Press releases carry no artwork, so a 4px gold cap stands in for the image and keeps them the same weight of object as the rest of the grid. Section heads lead with a short gold bar rather than a full-width rule.

Press kit added. A block for producers: booking bio, media contact, and optional headshot / biography / logo downloads. Uses the media_contact, headshot_url, bio_url, logos_url and media_bio attributes that 5.8.0 declared but never rendered.

Copy fixes. "Op Ed" is now "Op-Eds", "Interview" is "Interviews", "Press Release" is "Press Releases". The decorative 01/02/03 section markers are gone.

6.20.2

Masthead tightened. It stood 719px tall and now stands 608px, with the slack taken out rather than moved around.

• The 56px gap under the logo wall was the grid's row gap. The hero is a grid and the jump line is its second row, so gap: 3.5rem was spacing them apart. Split into column-gap: 3.5rem and row-gap: 0; the jump rule now follows the wall by 24px.
• The panel is shorter, which is what set the whole masthead's height: rows to 54px thumbs and .7rem padding, label rule tighter, box padding 1.2rem/.5rem. Four entries means every row's padding counted twice over.
• Hero logo rows grew to 104px with an 88px cap, absorbing height into the shorter column instead of leaving it as air - and the marks read better for it.
• Hero padding 3.25/2rem to 2.75/1.5rem.

The two columns still finish on the same line, and the space above the logo wall's rule is down from 141px to 46px - enough to separate the actions from the wall, not enough to read as a hole.

6.20.1

• The dead space under As Seen On is closed. The Latest panel is the taller of the two masthead columns, so the copy column ended early and left a void between the logo wall and the jump rule. The masthead grid is now align-items: stretch, the copy column is a flex column, and the logo wall takes margin-top: auto - so it sits on the floor of its column and both columns finish on the same line. The leftover height moves above the wall, where its top rule already reads as a divider.
• Hero logo rows tightened to a 60px box, the wall's bottom padding removed, and the jump line's top margin cut from 2.75rem to 1.5rem, so nothing hangs below the logos before the rule.

6.20.0

• A jump line on the floor of the masthead. One rule spanning both hero columns, then "SEE MORE" and the three sections with their counts and a down arrow: Op-Eds 14, Interviews 22, Press Releases 10. It sits at the fold, so the first screen ends by naming what is below it and how much of it there is. Anchors to #newsroom-op-ed, #newsroom-interview, #newsroom-press-release.
• Clicking one scrolls smoothly, pushes the hash so the back button works, and moves focus to the section heading so keyboard and screen-reader users arrive there too. Instant rather than smooth under prefers-reduced-motion.
• scroll-margin-top: 6rem on sections so the site header does not cover the heading that was jumped to.
• Counts removed from the Browse-by-type chips. The jump line states the same three numbers about a hundred pixels above them; twice that close reads as noise. Section heads keep their total, far enough down the page to be useful again.
• On narrow screens the line stacks into three full-width rows with the count ranged right, each a 48px target.

6.19.0

• The masthead panel now carries two op-eds and two interviews instead of three interviews, and is labelled "Latest Op-Eds & Interviews". Queried two per type rather than as one list of four, so a busy month of interviews can never push the written commentary out entirely; the four are then sorted newest-first across both types.

• The Newsroom no longer reads as three articles. Only three cards show per section, and the first outside reaction to the page was "wait, there's only three articles?" - so the page now states its own scale in two places, before and during the scroll:

  • the Browse-by-type chips carry counts: All 46, Op-Eds 14, Interviews 22, Press Releases 10, sitting directly under the masthead;
  • each section head states its total beside the heading - "14 OP-EDS".

  Both are plain numbers in existing furniture rather than a scroll cue or an arrow; a chevron says "there is more" but not how much, and the count is what actually contradicts the wrong impression. .fism-newsroom__head-side was display: none because it held nothing - it holds the count now.

6.18.2

• Stale notification links land on the Newsroom instead of a 404. The Partner's Hub freezes a notification's destination into post meta when the notification is created, so an entry that is later merged or removed leaves the notification pointing at a slug that no longer resolves. Any unresolved entry slug - query-var form or pretty permalink - now redirects to the Newsroom page, where the surviving entry for that appearance will be.
• New fism_newsroom_page_url() helper, filterable via fism_newsroom_page_url.

6.18.1

• The external redirect moved from template_redirect priority 5 to 11. FISM Notifications marks a notification read on template_redirect at the default priority 10, so redirecting any earlier would have sent the partner out to the publisher without ever clearing the badge - the notification would have stayed unread no matter how many times it was clicked.

6.18.0

Newsroom entries now have working pages.

The press-release post type was registered non-viewable by the main Financial Issues plugin, so no entry had a front end at all: /press-release/<slug>/ returned 404, and so did the ?press-release=<slug> form the Partner's Hub notification bar builds. That was invisible while the feed held only press releases nobody clicked through to. Now that it also carries op-eds and interviews, a partner clicking an interview in the notification bar landed on a 404 instead of the interview - and press-release cards on the Newsroom page pointed at the same dead URL.

• The post type is made public / publicly_queryable through the existing register_post_type_args filter, with rewrite slug press-release and no archive - the Newsroom page is the archive.
• Rewrite rules flush once per plugin version on init, because a plugin update does not re-run the activation hook.
• A template_redirect handler sends any single entry that has an external source straight to that source. Page Links To normally does this; owning it here means the redirect survives that plugin being disabled and covers the notification-bar URLs too.

Net effect: interviews and op-eds open at the publisher, genuine press releases open on their own shareable page, from the notification bar and the Newsroom page alike.

6.17.3

• The masthead now blends into the site menu. The hero's texture layer carried filter: saturate(.78) contrast(.96), and a filter applies to the whole layer stack - including the opaque cream veil over the photograph. So the top of the hero rendered cooler and paler than the menu bar above it and drew a hard line across the full width. The filter is gone; the softening it did is carried by the veil opacities instead, at both the desktop and the narrow-screen breakpoint.
• --fism-paper corrected from #EEDFCA to #EEDFCB, the exact cream the site header paints, so the two grounds are the same colour rather than one unit apart.

6.17.2

• As Seen On is now one row. All five outlet logos stay on a single horizontal line instead of wrapping three-over-two.
• Logos are larger. The desktop logo box is increased substantially, with the masthead row allowed to use part of the gutter so the marks remain readable without colliding with the Latest panel.
• Mobile stays one row too. On narrow screens the logo row becomes swipeable rather than shrinking or wrapping.

6.13.1

• As Seen On is sized for the masthead column. The wall sits under the two actions, ranged left with the rest of the copy, at 180x58 per mark instead of the old 130x44 - large enough to read at a glance and enough to fill the space that was empty beneath the buttons.

6.13.0

Built on 6.12.1.

• Featured In is now a static wall. Five marks - Fox Business, CBN News, Blaze Media on the top row, Newsmax and Townhall centred beneath. The duplicated track, the animation, the pause button and its JS are gone. Every logo is fitted to the same 190x64 box rather than capped by height alone, so a short wide wordmark reads at the same weight as a tall one.
• Card footers. "Program / Destination" is gone. The outlet now sits at the foot of the card as the linked destination, with the date on the right of the same line, so Op-Eds and Interviews carry dates the way Press Releases always did.
• Latest from the Newsroom stretches to the height of the masthead and drops the divider under its last entry, so the panel ends where the content ends instead of leaving ground beneath it.
• Section intros rewritten.

6.12.1

• Program / Destination is pinned to the bottom of each Op-Ed and Interview card body, so the divider and destination row stay aligned across a three-card row regardless of headline length.
• Featured Image now has absolute artwork priority. If an editor sets one, the plugin does not request or render the external thumbnail for that card.
• External destination thumbnails are still discovered automatically when no Featured Image is set, with the existing destination placeholder used if extraction fails.

6.12.0

• Removed the Newsroom hero description to tighten the masthead.
• Moved the As Seen On logo marquee into the hero beneath the interview CTAs in a compact format.
• Newsroom pagination now shows 3 cards per section at a time.
• Op-Ed and Interview cards are shorter: type, title, and Program / Destination only.
• Press Release cards keep their description and date.
• External Op-Ed/Interview artwork is discovered automatically when no Featured Image is set.

6.11.2

Built on 6.11.1. One change only.

• Featured In shows exactly four logos at a time. Slots are now sized as a fraction of the visible strip rather than a fixed pixel width, so four fill it exactly at any screen width. The shortcode passes the number of logos to the CSS, which sizes the track from it, so the count stays correct if the list ever changes.
• The edge fade was removed. It existed to soften logos being clipped mid-slide; with whole slots visible there is nothing to clip and it was only dimming the first and fourth.
• Below 900px it steps down to three, below 700px to two, rather than squeezing four into a phone.

The flip timing is untouched: three unhurried steps of three logos each.

6.11.1

• Fixed the search field. The magnifier was absolutely positioned on top of the input and relied on the input keeping our left padding; the theme was overriding that padding, so the icon landed on the placeholder text. The field is now a flex row - the wrapper carries the border and background, the icon and clear button are real flex children, and the input sits between them with its own border and padding forced off. It cannot overlap regardless of what the theme does to inputs.
• Focus ring moved to the wrapper via :focus-within, so the whole field highlights rather than an inner box.
• Browser's native search clear button suppressed so it does not sit beside ours.

6.11.0

• Masthead back to bold: 104px cap, weight 700, slight negative tracking. Section headings stay at the site's weight 400, so the masthead reads as a deliberate masthead rather than an inconsistency.
• Hero columns top-align. Both the eyebrow and the Latest panel now start on the same line rather than the copy being vertically centred.
• Latest panel tightened: padding 1.75rem to 1.25rem, thumbs 76px to 60px, row padding and internal gaps reduced, headline 17px to 16px. Panel height drops from 484px to 409px.

6.10.0

• Masthead enlarged to a 92px cap, still weight 400 with normal letter-spacing so it keeps the site's voice at the larger size.
• Hero columns now share a height exactly - the copy block and the Latest panel both measure 484px, so the band reads as one composed unit rather than a tall panel next to a short one.
• The copy block is vertically centred rather than pushed apart. Stretching it with space-between matched the heights but left a hole between the lede and the buttons, which is the same dead-space problem the cards had.
• Below 1000px the columns stack and return to natural heights.

6.9.0 - matched to the site

Measured against the live homepage, Meet the Team, and interior pages rather than designed in isolation. Three things were wrong:

• Gold bars removed everywhere. The site uses gold for one thing: button fills, plus small menu accents. It is never a rule or a cap. Every gold bar on this page was invented - above the eyebrow, above each section heading, on the side panel, on press release cards. All gone.
• Headings now match the site spec. Every heading on financialissues.org is weight 400 with normal letter-spacing. Mine were 700 with negative tracking, which is why they read as foreign. Hero is now 64px / 72px line / weight 400, matching the homepage H1. Section headings are 48px / 56px / weight 400 / #1A1A1A, matching the site H2 exactly.
• Primary button matches Partner's Hub - gold fill, dark label. The secondary stays outline, matching Donate. Active filter tabs, pagination and hover underlines all moved from gold to navy.

Deliberate deviation: site body copy is 15px / 26px. Card excerpts stay at 18px here. Fifteen is small for a 55+ audience reading a wall of summaries, and this page is denser than the rest of the site. Easy to change if you would rather be exact.

6.8.0

• Side panel now shows the newest entry from each section - one op-ed, one interview, one press release - instead of a single featured item. Three compact rows: 76px thumb, type and outlet kicker, two-line headline, date.
• Each row links straight out to the publisher when the entry has an external link, and stays on site when it does not.
• Thumbnails follow the same ladder as the cards: Featured Image, then the cached outlet image. Press releases show the FISM mark on cream; an op-ed or interview with no artwork yet falls back to the outlet initials on navy.
• Still self-maintaining. Publish anything and its row updates.
• featured_id is no longer used.

6.7.0

• The masthead side panel is no longer a press kit. The three links (contact, headshot, biography) are gone and it is now a Latest coverage panel: one live entry with its artwork, type, outlet, headline and date, linking straight out to the publisher.
• It picks itself. Newest op-ed or interview by default, because those carry outlet artwork; falls back to the newest entry of any type. Pin a specific one with featured_id="1234" on [newsroom_page] if you ever want to.
• Zero maintenance: post something new and the panel updates itself.
• The old press kit attributes (media_contact, headshot_url, bio_url, logos_url, media_bio) are left in place but unused, so the block can be restored later without rework.

6.6.0

• Press kit moved out of its own full-width band and into the right column of the hero, beside the Newsroom masthead. The Op-Eds now begin roughly a third of a screen earlier. Panel is a compact cream card with a gold cap, stacking below the masthead under 1000px.
• "Apply to be a guest" dropped from the panel list, since the hero CTA beside it already says the same thing.

6.5.0

• Play badge removed from interview cards.
• FISM mark added to the top right of press release cards only. 26px tall at 80% opacity, clear of the kicker, and non-interactive so it never intercepts a click. Press release card padding opened up to make room for it.
• The logo URL is filterable via fism_newsroom_logo_url if it ever moves.

6.4.0

• Featured Image now overrides the card artwork. Set one on any entry and it wins, on every card, permanently. Leave it empty and the Newsroom keeps pulling the image from the outlet page as before. Previously the remote image beat the Featured Image, so setting one had no visible effect. Press releases show a media well too, but only when they have a Featured Image - otherwise they stay the clean text list. A short note under the Featured Image box in the editor explains this.
• Press kit matched to the site. The navy block is gone. It is now a plain

  FDF4E8 band, square, no border - the same treatment as the AS SEEN ON band

  on the homepage. Section labels use the site's own 16px / regular / 3px tracking / navy rather than a style invented for this page.

• Featured In logos enlarged from 42px to 104px, in 112px slots, matching how they render on the homepage.

6.3.0 - square, broadcast

• "Newsroom" runs at up to 104px with tight tracking, opened by a gold rule.
• Press kit inverted to a navy block with a full-width gold cap. It is now the anchor of the page rather than a beige panel that blends into the ground.
• Every radius removed. Cards, artwork, search, buttons and the navy block are square.
• Featured In advances in three unhurried steps instead of gliding. Each step is exactly a sixth of the doubled track, so logos land on their own edges and never stop mid-wordmark. Roughly five seconds held, one and a half moving.
• Pause control is no longer visible. It is still in the DOM and appears only when a keyboard user tabs to it, which keeps auto-moving content compliant without putting a button on the page.
• Buttons brought down to the site's own scale: 46px tall, 16px label, 1px border, 2px radius - matching Donate and Partner's Hub rather than towering over them.
• Pagination is now quiet text with a gold underline on the current page. Tap targets stay at 44px through padding instead of a row of filled tiles.

Page shortcode

[newsroom_page]

Optional attributes:

headline, lede, media_bio
book_url        default /contact/
guest_url       default /apply-to-be-a-guest/
media_contact   default /contact/
headshot_url    optional — link renders only if set
bio_url         optional
logos_url       optional
initial_visible default 6

Rollback

Replace the plugin folder with the 5.8.0 build. No database changes were made in this version.

6.17.2

• Reworked mobile layout for phone/webview use with larger touch targets and reduced vertical bulk.
• Added 2x2 mobile type controls, mobile section auto-navigation, swipe-friendly outlet row, and tighter card/pagination behavior.