PublisherKits NewsDesk Manager

NewsDesk Manager is an editorial inbox for news and trade publishers. It collects the press releases, newsroom feeds and official announcements your site may republish, scores each one against your audience and interests, and gives your editor one ranked queue to work through. Nothing is ever published on its own: the editor decides, and NewsDesk prepares a WordPress draft. Sources you are allowed to use

• RSS and newsroom feeds: press release wires, company newsrooms, official bodies, trade associations and partner feeds.
• Email: a dedicated mailbox read over IMAP. Mail from a new sender waits in Needs attention until an editor approves the sender.
• Every source needs a recorded republish confirmation before anything is fetched.

Reuse rights on every item Every candidate is graded Direct reuse, Reuse with credit, Background only or Off limits, with the reasons shown. The grade decides what a draft may contain: a Background only item never has its text copied, and an Off limits item cannot be drafted. Embargoed items are held until their release time. Copies of the same release sent to several addresses are folded into one. A ranked review queue Items are scored on topic match, audience fit, your site's past engagement, freshness and source trust, with the breakdown one click away. Editors create a draft, dismiss or snooze, and every decision is recorded on your site so you can see what your desk prefers. Drafts ready to edit Create draft makes a WordPress draft with the source text, the credit, a link to the original and provenance details. Summary-only feed items are read in full from the source's own website (robots.txt respected). Images that came with an item are listed with their clearance, and added to the Media Library only when an editor chooses one. A House Style tab holds your site's style rules, shown beside every draft. AI optional NewsDesk works with no AI at all: scoring falls back to rules and says so. On WordPress 7.0 or later, with an AI provider configured at Settings > Connectors, you can switch on "Use AI judgement" in NewsDesk Settings (off by default) and NewsDesk uses the WordPress AI Client to judge audience fit and suggest a reuse grade. NewsDesk stores no AI key of its own. PublisherKits Site Profile If your site has a PublisherKits Site Profile, NewsDesk reads your topics, audience and exclusions from it. Without one, describe your interests on NewsDesk's own Interests tab. NewsDesk Manager Pro is a separate paid version that adds AI drafting to your house style with every quote and figure checked against the source, combining several items into one story, several mailboxes and AI sorting of new senders. Everything described above is in this free plugin and is not time-limited.

1.1.0 - 2026-10-24

• Changed: AI judgement is now an explicit choice. With an AI provider configured at Settings > Connectors, NewsDesk sends nothing to it until you tick "Use AI judgement" in NewsDesk Settings (off by default). The setting says exactly what each request contains. If you used AI judgement before, tick the box once to keep it.
• Fixed: the Help assistant's privacy notice, the Support settings and this readme now say that when your site's own AI cannot answer and the site is authorised for the PublisherKits support service, the assistant falls back to that service and sends it your question and recent chat history.
• Fixed: on the PublisherKits Site Profile, tick-box questions that sit inside another question (such as which sources you have, or reader seniority) now save; previously those answers were lost on save.
• Improved: settings forms read only their own fields, never the whole request, and the Support settings no longer strip a character from saved values.

1.0.1 - 2026-10-15

• Updated Freemius SDK to the latest version.

1.0.0 - 2026-10-01

• First public release.
• Intake: RSS and newsroom feeds, and a dedicated mailbox read over IMAP (never deleting, moving or marking mail as read). Every source needs a recorded republish confirmation before anything is fetched; mail from a new sender waits in Needs attention until an editor approves the sender.
• Reuse rights: every item is graded Direct reuse, Reuse with credit, Background only or Off limits, with the reasons shown, and the grade decides what a draft may contain. Embargoed items are held until their release time; duplicate copies of a release are folded into one.
• Review queue: items ranked on topic match, audience fit, past engagement, freshness and source trust, with the breakdown one click away. Create draft, dismiss or snooze; every decision is recorded on your site.
• Drafts: a WordPress draft with the source text, credit, link to the original and provenance. Summary-only feed items are read in full from the source's own site (robots.txt respected); images are listed with their clearance and imported only when an editor chooses one.
• House Style tab, shown beside every draft. Reads your PublisherKits Site Profile when the site has one.
• Optional AI judgement of audience fit and reuse grade through the WordPress AI Client (WordPress 7.0+); without a provider, scoring runs on rules and says so.