Local news and community stories
Structured publishing for timely stories that readers can find, scan, and return to.
← Back to selected work
Case study / full-stack platform
LebanonMoNow is built for the pace of local news.
A custom publishing platform for Lebanon, Missouri—made to organize local news, community events, original shows, and episodes without forcing the team through a generic website builder.
ClientLebanonMoNow
CategoryLocal news platform
ScopeFull-stack build + custom CMS
Built forOngoing daily publishing
The project
A platform, not a brochure site.
LebanonMoNow needed more than a homepage and a blog. Its team needed a system that could support a changing stream of local reporting while giving readers clear ways to browse what matters: headlines, community stories, events, shows, and individual episodes.
Cardwell Web built the platform from the ground up, pairing a public-facing local news experience with a custom CMS behind the scenes. The result is a site made for publishing, not a template being stretched into a newsroom.
What the platform supports
Different content needs different structure.
Events that stay useful
An event experience designed around dates, local relevance, and a clear way to see what is happening next.
Original shows and episodes
Dedicated content paths for programming, episode pages, and an on-demand library that can keep growing.
A custom editorial CMS
A purpose-built administrative workflow for managing the platform’s content instead of relying on a generic page builder.
A content-first experience
Every part has a job.
The public site makes the newest local reporting easy to reach while giving recurring content types their own homes. That matters for readers, but it also gives the platform a clearer information architecture as its library grows.
Instead of treating every post as the same thing, the product can present news, shows, episodes, and events in the ways people expect to browse them.
Explore the live platform ↗Why custom matters
Publishing systems need room to evolve.
Off-the-shelf themes can be a reasonable starting point for a simple publication. They become restrictive when the product needs its own content model, editorial workflow, navigation patterns, and future features.
This build gives LebanonMoNow a platform shaped around how it actually publishes. New content types and reader experiences can be added to the system without rebuilding the public site around another template’s limitations.
That same approach is available for organizations whose websites have become real operational tools—membership platforms, directories, resource libraries, internal dashboards, and publishing products.
Have a bigger idea than a brochure site?
Build the system behind the experience.
Whether you need a custom CMS, a content platform, or a web application that has to grow with your team, we can map the product before writing the first page.
Start a conversation