Case study · Media · Editorial OS
Three publications, one desk.
A media group was running three separate publications on three separate habits: different planning, different drafting, different publishing. DESK5 puts all three on one desk — a shared board, an AI-assisted drafting flow tuned per publication, and a pipeline that checks its own sources before anything ships.
The system, in 60 seconds · Client: Media group, Kuala Lumpur
Before and after
What changed.
Before
- Three publications, three planning habits, no shared pipeline view
- Story research done manually, then re-done when it went stale
- Draft voice drifting between writers and between titles
- Citations checked by whoever had time, if anyone did
- No single place to see what was in flight across the group
After
- One planning board across all three publications
- Scheduled research that lands new leads before the desk opens
- AI-assisted drafting held to each publication's own voice
- Citations probed for dead links and invented domains before publish
- Group-wide view of everything in flight, by stage
What we built
The system, module
by module.
Planning board
Every story across three publications on one board, moving through defined stages.
Scheduled research
A daily run that surfaces new leads into the board automatically, ahead of the editorial day.
Voice-tuned drafting
Per-publication drafting profiles so a title still sounds like itself when AI assists the first pass.
Citation verification
Every cited link probed for soft-404s and invented domains before it reaches a reader.
Publishing flow
One route from approved draft to published piece, shared by all three titles.
Governed data layer
Editorial data isolated behind row-level policies, with server-side access held to a service role.
How it is built
The engineering underneath.
Application
React and Vite front end on an Express server
AI layer
Multi-model drafting and research, routed per task
Data layer
Postgres with row-level security, service-role server access
Automation
Scheduled daily research and lead ingestion
Questions
About this
engagement.
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Talk to usWhat is DESK5?
An editorial operating system built by Ontilus for a media group running three publications. It combines a shared planning board, scheduled research that feeds the board, AI-assisted drafting tuned to each publication's voice, and a publishing flow that verifies citations before anything is released.
Does the AI write the articles?
It assists the first pass and the research around it. Editorial judgement, approval and publication stay with the desk — the system is built so a human signs off on everything that ships.
How does it stop AI from inventing sources?
Every citation is probed before publish: dead links and soft-404s are caught, and domains that do not resolve as real publications are flagged. A source that cannot be reached does not make it into a published piece.
More work
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in the field.
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