Newsrooms… most companies have them, but who’s driving them?

published 2003

At a time when most professions are increasingly web-savvy, it’s important that we understand the ways in which company web sites are being used.

Originally, most corporate sites were nothing more than ‘brochureware’… a collection of static pages that replicated the company’s corporate brochure.  As new technology became available, individual departments within the organisation harnessed it to enhance their individual parts of the site.

It is now PR’s turn to harness the web, for technology is now available that suits the needs of corporate and marketing communicators.

Not only is the technology there to do quite amazing things with a custom newsroom, it appears those within the media are looking for this sort of functionality when researching stories as well.

A survey undertaken in the USA by Mindshare Internet Campaigns, an online public affairs firm, indicated that web sites were an essential source of information for journalists.

The findings of Washington ‘influentials’ highlighted that 54% of media surveyed ranked web sites as their “most trusted source” of information (excluding direct contact) when researching stories.  We suspect that while the figure may not be quite that high in Australia, the trend towards company web site searching is happening within the media here.

US findings released by the Nielson Norman Group show that 92% of journalists use the internet for research and 63% say the Internet has changed the way they work.

If being included in media articles is high on your agenda, then maybe you should look seriously at the newsroom on your web site.   Just as you fight for your role within your organisation, you may have to fight for your newsroom’s role, and who should be driving it, within your web site.

Most large Australian companies do indeed have a newsroom.  And most offer a range of information and a variety of ways for journalists to receive it.  So, the basic tools of trade are there, but those tools can be vastly improved upon, especially in areas of posting new data quickly and some newer customised functions.

Effective web site newsrooms need to offer more than a place for old press releases to go to die.  At the very least they need to offer:

• Your latest media releases
• The latest published articles about your organisation
• An archive searchable by date, product, issue or other relevance
• The ability to instantly publish new releases to the site
• Management biographies
• A photo library covering people, products and facilities
• Complete media kits
• FAQs
• Contact details for spokespeople and PR staff

This is what’s considered the absolute minimum for most organisations today.  Larger companies, or companies operating in ‘hot’ or volatile markets may also need to consider extra site functionality such as:

• The ability for journalists to request media alerts sent direct to their e-mail in-box
• Media databases from which to automatically ‘blast’ out releases to standard or customised lists
• Links through to different sections of the site such as annual reports, live stockmarket information or technical details on products.
• The ability to directly manage issues and crises through the web site

Ask yourself, is your site structured in a way that will make a journalist’s job easier?  Does your site position you as a possible contributor to the journalist’s story?  And are you able to instantly publish new material to it, or do you have to go through a webmaster?

Newsroom development is quite a hot industry in the USA where ‘plug and play’ newsrooms, giving the PR department the ability to manage the content, have been growing in use for some time.