News Site setup

I need some advice on the best way to setup a site that will have articles added to it daily. Basically, I'm charged with designing the site, and improving the current site, which basically uses manual updating methods (ie. each writer adds in his/her article into the html page by hand, and does all formatting by hand). I'm looking to somewhat automate this process. Basically the site is very similar in nature to devshed, in that it has articles, with a main page that has links to those articles. Could somebody either lead me to a guide that will give me details on how to implement such a system, or a ready made script, or at least what language would be best. I'm as lost as I've ever been since I've never done something like this before. I was thinking of using ssi, but can't figure out a way to avoid having to add a new ssi tag each time a new article is written. Anyway, sorry for rambling on, any help is greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
-snap-