Iconic news brand nzherald.co.nz has deployed a unique New Zealand software tool suite to help its journalists stay ahead of the news cycle.
The award-winning nzherald.co.nz news team is now using the Fuseworks Media Centre to help source and create its leading blend of fast breaking and in depth news.
Fuseworks co-founder Simon Randall said today: “Having the nzherald.co.nz team choose Fuseworks is not only a real thrill but also a vindication of our philosophy that technology is integral to quality journalism.
“The nzherald.co.nz team put the platform through a thorough testing schedule before making the decision, which makes this result all the more rewarding,” he said.
“Companies have one big IT problem right now: how to process, store and understand the rapidly growing data deluge that is flooding in from ever more connected devices and web services,” BBC News website business editor Tim Weber said this week.
His observation applies equally to the news media. Having a “deluge” of potential story leads and relevant information may sound like an enviable problem for journalists to have. But on the media coal face, it has become a constant battle to separate signal from digital noise.
That’s where Fuseworks ability to instantly relate and connect content comes in. The Media Centre platform provides journalists news from more than 3,000 New Zealand sources, and other key information such as what’s trending in social media and online news, all added in real time.
Articles are displayed in a dashboard alongside other highly relevant information – related press releases, contact details for experts and communications professionals, a calendar of events, and “trending” graphs of topics and sources.
“By automating the process of connecting the dots between source material, we’re freeing up journalists’ time to pursue unique angles and make their stories more compelling for their audience,” Randall says.
nzherald.co.nz is the second major New Zealand media company to deploy Fuseworks in the last month. In July, Yahoo! New Zealand rolled out the platform across its news operation.
Communications professionals who want to provide content for inclusion in Fuseworks services should email their news and advisories to news@fuseworks.co.nz.
Highlights of the Fuseworks Media Centre:
- Content can be instantly sorted by source, related groups, keyword and context;
- Journalists can track all the news in real-time, or create subscriptions to topics of special interest to them;
- List of Hot News updates constantly according to what’s gaining traction with search and social media users;
- Auto-updating calendar of media events categorised by geography, topic and source;
- More than 3,000 primary sources feeding automatically into the database;
- Contact details for more than 4,000 NZ profiles.