A folder of screenshots called Clippings v3
Coverage for the month is logged. Now someone has to produce clippings. For web pieces that means opening each link, dismissing a cookie banner and a newsletter pop-up, taking a full-page screenshot, cropping out the adverts and saving it with a name nobody will follow consistently. Print pieces arrive as photos from the client's office or as scans from a cuttings service, often at an angle. Paywalled articles need a login someone at the agency may or may not have.
Each clipping then goes into a slide or document with the title name, the date and sometimes a readership figure. It is the least loved job in the agency and usually lands on the most junior person on a Friday afternoon.
Why it stays manual
- Web pages are cluttered with banners and pop-ups that ruin automatic screenshots.
- Articles change or disappear, so a clipping taken late may not match what ran.
- Print, online and broadcast each need a different capture method.
- Paywalls block automated tools that do not hold a subscription.
- There is no agreed format, so each account team clips differently.
Tools exist for parts of this. CoverageBook, for example, captures web coverage into reports. Agencies that still clip by hand usually have a mix of sources the tool does not cover, or client formats it does not match.
What the hand-clipping costs
The obvious cost is staff time on repetitive work. The less obvious one is quality: clippings made in a hurry have wrong dates, missing mastheads, or show an updated version of an article rather than what was published. Links in reports die months later and the client has no copy. When a client asks for all coverage from a campaign two years ago, the clippings are scattered across old decks.
How we build the clipping step
- When a web piece is confirmed in your coverage list, a headless browser opens it, removes cookie banners and pop-ups using rules per site, and captures the article area as an image and a PDF.
- The capture happens soon after the piece is logged, so it reflects what ran, and it is stored with the date and time taken.
- For paywalled titles where your agency holds a subscription, the capture can use that account's session, within the publisher's terms. Where it cannot, the item is flagged for a manual clip.
- Print scans and photos are straightened, cropped and cleaned automatically, and a person confirms the crop.
- Each clipping gets a consistent label: title, masthead logo from a library, date, journalist, and page number for print.
- Clippings are filed with the coverage record in SharePoint, Google Drive or your own storage, named the same way every time.
| Coverage type | Capture method | Person needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Open web article | Automatic capture after logging | Only if the capture looks wrong |
| Paywalled article with subscription | Capture using the agency session | Only if blocked |
| Paywalled without subscription | Flagged | Yes, manual clip |
| Print page scan or photo | Straighten and crop | Confirm the crop |
| Broadcast segment | Link and transcript excerpt | Choose the segment |
Friday afternoon, reclaimed
By the time the month closes, most clippings already exist, labelled and filed. The junior executive checks a short list of flagged items: two paywalled pieces to clip manually and three print photos to confirm. The report builder pulls the finished clippings straight in.
When a client asks for everything from a campaign in a previous year, the clippings are in one place with the same names, and the captures still exist even where the original article has since been taken down.
Checklist
- Clippings are made by hand from screenshots.
- Different teams produce clippings in different formats.
- Print cuttings arrive as phone photos.
- Report links have gone dead and there is no saved copy.
- Clipping is a Friday job nobody wants.