An article is a researched, long-form piece Mato writes from one of your episodes, grounded in facts it can point back to, and ready to publish to a WordPress site. This is different from a newsletter, which is a short email draft from the same episode. See Newsletters for that flow.
Where to find it
Click Content in the sidebar, under Create, to open the Content hub. It lists every newsletter and article across your shows, with filters for kind (All content, Articles, Newsletters), status (All, Drafts, Pushed, Failed), and show, plus a search box. Each row shows a status badge: Draft, Generating, Pushed, Edited since push, Pushing…, Push failed, or Needs attention.
If you have no content yet, the hub says "Pick an episode and create a newsletter or researched article from it." with a Create your first draft button. If you have no published episodes yet, it says "Publish an episode first" instead, since an article is written from an episode's transcript, script, or show notes.
Start from an episode
Click New content on the hub, or Create your first draft on the empty state. Pick a show, then switch the Article / Newsletter toggle to Article. Each episode in the list shows one of:
- Explore article angles, for an episode with a transcript, script, or show notes Mato can write from.
- Open existing, if you already started an article from this episode.
- Source required, if the episode has none of the above and cannot be used yet.
Pick an angle
Clicking an eligible episode opens the angle workbench, where Mato researches the episode and proposes separate article ideas. It shows "Planning article angles" while the research runs and refreshes itself automatically, so you do not need to reload the page.
Mato only keeps angles it can ground in the episode's own evidence. If it cannot support enough of them, you see "Partial angle set" with only the grounded ones kept. If none survive, you see "No grounded angles found," and the page offers Create another angle to try again rather than padding the set with unsupported ideas.
Once angles are ready, each one appears as a card with Write article (or Open article if it is already started) and Reject. Select one or more cards, then click Create article (or Create N articles for several at once). You can also click Create another angle at any point to have Mato research a fresh one from the same episode.
The article editor
Once an article starts generating, its page shows drafting progress and updates automatically. Mato tells you if generation fails, without losing the episode or your settings, so you can retry from the same point.
A finished article opens in an editor with a top bar (Preview, Research & regenerate, Save, a version number, and a save status such as "Unsaved changes" or "All changes saved") and, below it, six tabs: Preview, Writing, SEO, Media, Sources, and Publish.
- Preview shows the rendered article as a reader would see it.
- Writing holds the block-by-block content editor, where you edit the text Mato drafted.
- SEO holds the article's search metadata fields.
- Media holds image settings alongside the facts panel's media view (see below).
- Sources shows the facts panel's evidence view: every claim the article makes, with the episode evidence backing it.
- Publish holds the WordPress publishing controls and the export controls for copying or downloading the article.
If two people (or a regeneration) save the same article at once, Mato shows a conflict dialog rather than silently overwriting anyone's work: Keep editing discards nothing you typed, or Load the newer version picks up the other save.
Facts and image rights
The Sources tab lists the article's claims against the episode evidence Mato used to write them, so you can check anything before it goes out.
The Media tab is where you add and manage images, and it is where publishing blockers usually show up. An image only becomes publishable once someone records who holds the rights to it and what the article may do with it:
- Upload a JPEG, PNG, or WebP image under 15 MB (an article holds up to 30 images).
- Mato stores the upload but will not insert or review it until you record its rights: the basis (your account owns it, or the rights holder gave permission), who holds the rights, what the permission covers, where it may be used, what editing is allowed, the intended use, and whether a credit is required.
- Once rights are recorded, submit them. Mato either accepts the image for review or keeps it in review if an answer (typically the territory or editing scope) needs a closer look.
- If a third party gave permission with an end date, Mato asks you to re-confirm it periodically. Use Re-confirm permission on that image when it comes due.
Publishing checks every image's recorded rights before the article can go out. If any block publishing, the Publish tab names the reason, for example "No usable rights grant covers this image," "The recorded rights term has expired," or "An image has not passed editorial review." Fix the flagged image on the Media tab, then retry publishing.
Recording rights in Mato is your account's own declaration for that WordPress destination. It is not legal clearance and not a warranty.
Publish to WordPress
The Publish tab pushes the article to a WordPress site connected under Content settings (see below). Depending on how that connection is set up, publishing either creates or updates a draft for someone to approve, or, on a fully compatible site, publishes and verifies the live page directly.
Publication history is append-only: every push you make stays on record with its timestamp and a link to the result, so you can always see what went out and when.
If a push is blocked, the tab explains why. Besides the media-rights reasons above, common blockers include incomplete SEO metadata, research that has not finished, a website index that changed after the article was generated, or a WordPress connection that no longer supports a block the article uses. Publishing waits until the blocking condition clears.
Set up publishing destinations
Click Settings at the top of the Content hub to open Content settings, and connect the WordPress sites your articles can publish to. Each connection needs:
- A connection name.
- Whether it is available to the entire account or reserved for one podcast, so Mato picks it automatically for that show.
- The site's URL, a WordPress username, and an application password (create one in WordPress under Users › Profile › Application Passwords; Mato never sees your normal WordPress password).
Mato validates the site before saving the connection, and shows each connected site as either Automation ready (the compatibility check found the site preserves Mato's player and structured data, so fully automatic publishing is available) or Approval publishing (draft and approval publishing work, but automatic publishing stays off until the site's setup changes).
The same settings page also lists your website sources: public pages Mato can read to learn a site's terminology, tone, and internal links before writing. A website source only feeds the writer's voice; it never grants publishing permission on its own.
Related
- Newsletters: the shorter email draft flow from the same episodes.
- Distribution: connecting a show so its episodes have public links to cite from an article.