I heard on the grapevine that Nixon's Head is actually getting quite tired of its pickle-jar abode. This is just the news it's been waiting for.

This is just a marketing stunt by the area's resident Dolphin community. They want to lure tourists to this patch of the sea, so they can do some backflips in return for loose change and hearty gifts of plankton.

Britney Braindead:
"OMG peepz Justin Bieber is on the morning show... switch channels RIGHT NOW!!!"
2 minutes ago

SSL... is it really necessary?

It sounds like what you're really looking for is a project management solution. Assigning tasks (such as 'write a story about x', 'cover the situation in y for the next 2 weeks'), settings deadlines, and co-ordinating groups or individuals - this all has very little to do with 'content management' as most people think about it.

Drupal has you covered with organising your content (taxonomy), tracking history and versioning, and establishing an editorial workflow (actions and workflow). But it doesn't have project management well covered (the 'project module' is too specific to software development), and there are no Drupal modules that I'm aware of, for integrating such management with actual content handling.

I think that Basecamp would do the job best for you. It has all these PM facilities, in a very intuitive and easy interface.