When it comes to news content management systems you either have custom in-house solutions which look like they were built in the 90's or you have those who simply use Wordpress.
While both solutions definitely get the job done, they're largely inconsiderate of those who are entering the content. Adding in various types of media (pull out quotes, images, videos, slideshows, forms) is a pain in the butt (if your CMS even supports those).
A content management system built just for reporting news. It could be open source, or it could be both open source and commercial. Ideally News CMS would have the following features;
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Robust revisioning system - Being able to go back and forwards in time to revert back to previous changes. Support for picking specific parts of previous revisions and importing them into the current revision.
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Support for page modules - Being able to mix and match various pieces of content like; slideshows, music players, video players, pull out quotes, surveys, forms, embedding other stories into a story and lots more.
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Page templates - Support for various page template layouts is without-a-doubt a large requirement; feature page, editorial piece, review, video layout, interview layout and lots more. The more layouts the beter.
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Streamlined editing process - Make the process of going from draft to editor and then eventually published. A dictionary and a thesaurus in this component is also a must.
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Research panel - A research panel alongside the article writing process; Google search, Google Maps, Youtube, Vimeo, Wikipedia and more. This would allow writers to source material for their articles without leaving the editing screen.
There are a lot of features to consider, the above only touches upon a few (albeit, a very important few features). Ideally, you would build this CMS ontop of something like Node.js and make it as lean as possible. A customised implementation of Markdown with a WYSIWYG editor making it easy to edit the content and you've got yourself a good product.
Wordpress is probably the only true existing solution out there that can do the aforementioned things. However, Wordpress is a large target of hackers and comes with many features irrelevant to the news industry. A product solely for news if done right, could be a hit. The niche is big enough to sustain itself for a very long time.
There are of course other solutions, mostly private and built in-house at news organisations. Having seen first hand what some of these tools look like, there is definitely room for a better product that makes writing an article much faster.