TL;DR 

• Many newsrooms keep their Digital Asset Management (DAM) system separate from editorial planning, which leaves assets stuck in an archive and slows the story down. 
• Sternwald's huGO integrates with Kordiam, so assets become part of the editorial process from the first idea through to publication. 
• Editors can link assets from inside a Kordiam story, turn an asset into a new story, and have contributor uploads routed to the right place automatically. 
• Semantic search and AI image recommendations surface the right material even when the planning entry holds only a headline. 
• The outcome is less tool sprawl and more control over content across its full lifecycle. 

Most newsrooms still treat their DAM as a place where content goes after it is published. Photos, videos, and agency material sit in an archive, separated from the planning work that drives a story. A demo from Bastian Metz, Managing Director of Sternwald Systems, shows what changes when that archive becomes an active part of editorial planning instead. By connecting the DAM system huGO with Kordiam, Sternwald makes asset management part of the planning process, so the work and the materials stay connected from the first idea through to publication. 

How does connecting your DAM to editorial planning change the workflow? 

Connecting them builds asset discovery directly into the editorial planning stage, so editors stop searching, exporting, and re-uploading between systems. As soon as an editor creates a story in Kordiam, the system can create a matching collection in huGO automatically. From inside the Kordiam story view, editors can search the full huGO library and link relevant photos, videos, and agency feeds directly to the planning item. Because the assets stay connected to the story from the start, everyone working on it keeps full context and the right material stays within reach. The cost of getting this wrong is well documented. In the Reuters Institute's Journalism and Technology Trends and Predictions 2026, news executives named the lack of alignment between competing internal groups and systems for example due to silos as one of the biggest barriers to innovation, cited by 48% of respondents (p. 38). 

What if a story starts with the assets instead of the plan? 

You can turn that asset into a Kordiam story in a single step, without rebuilding anything by hand. Many stories do not begin in a planning meeting at all. They begin with the material itself, an agency feed, a striking image, or a piece a reporter has already filed. When an editor finds something worth pursuing in huGO, huGO helps generate a working title and slug, Kordiam creates the corresponding story, and the source asset is attached to the new planning item from the outset. 

Where do contributor and freelancer uploads go? 

When a contributor uploads an asset into a Kordiam task, the file is stored in the correct huGO collection automatically. Manual file transfers between systems are a familiar source of version-control problems and lost work, especially for external reporters and photographers who often work outside the planning tool entirely. The integration handles this with two-way synchronization. Assets stay centrally managed in the DAM while keeping their editorial context in Kordiam, which spares editors the manual searches and duplicated uploads that slow contribution down. 

How does AI help editors find the right asset? 

huGO uses semantic search, returning results based on the meaning behind a search term rather than exact keyword matches. This surfaces relevant material even when the planning entry holds only a headline or a slug. The system can also recommend images based on the text of an article as it is being written, suggesting visuals that fit the story. This direction aligns with where newsrooms are already investing. In the same Reuters Institute survey, back-end automation such as tagging, transcription, and metadata was the AI use case rated "very important" by the largest share of executives, at 64% (p. 30). Tagging and metadata are core DAM functions, and that is precisely where an integrated, AI-supported asset system earns its place in the workflow. 

Why connect your DAM to editorial planning? 

It removes the tool sprawl and handoffs that slow daily newsroom work and keeps your assets active inside the planning process instead of sitting in a separate archive. With Kordiam and huGO connected, assets are no longer stored away as old material in a digital attic. They become a managed, automated part of editorial planning, from the first idea to the published piece, and your team stays in control of the content at every step. 

Read more about the integration here.