Prepress Technology March 2000
Washington Post manages
content with NewsView
By Ingrid Palmer
Staff Writer
Content-driven organizations such as newspapers are discovering the importance of expanding their businesses using new media solutions. Importing, exporting, searching for and repurposing content has brought an influx of revenue into the publishing industry that no one wants to pass up. The Washington Post is no exception.
Thanks to the implementation of Reed Technology and Information Services Inc.'s NewsView solutions, online publishing has never been easier.
"Newspapers are starting to look at ways to repurpose information to generate additional revenue," said Jim Bernstein, account manager at Reed Technology. "But repurposing leads to other areas, such as advertising. [Newsview] is creating new revenues for newspapers that didn't exist before."
Bernstein calls The Post a power user. They use the system to assemble the latest version of every story that runs in the paper then send it to their clients, which include Reuters and Lexis-Nexis.
Efficiency is extremely important, said Mike Rosiak, NewsView product manager. Previously employees manually keyed in the information, making it impossible to keep up with demand.
"NewsView defines the format as it comes in, takes the data and converts it from whatever format it exists in, then sends it to different areas in all different formats," Rosiak explains.
"We generate a lot of revenue selling content to our various clients," said Paul McCarthy, manager of online technology at The Washington Post. It helps that the program accepts filters that allow customization of features for each client.
"When we add new clients, we give them a choice," McCarthy said. "We send them the text data the way they want it."
The first version of NewsView that went into use at The Post in the spring of 1995 replaced a 14-year-old Raytheon editorial system. "The [Raytheon] system did not enable us to handle all of the clients and vendors we have today," McCarthy said. "We needed a type of text management system that had export capabilities."
After an extensive search, NewsView was selected and installed. Since then, The Post has upgraded the system numerous times with no problems and Y2K compliancy went perfectly. Additionally, the most recent version of NewsView is the first program to use the News Industry Text Format as its core data structure.
McCarthy cites ongoing service as one of the best aspects of using the NewsView technology. "Anytime we asked about the possibilities of enhancements or changes, [they] could tell us immediately whether we had a chance for it. The turnaround time for new filters is phenomenal. We never dreamed of getting service like this from a software vendor," McCarthy said. "Usually changes are ready the next day."
Newspapers can take advantage of the program's archiving or Web publishing systems, but the Post uses NewsView primarily for its import/export feature. "We do 175 to 360 stories a night and we use [the system] to process it overnight and export it to 15 or 16 clients," explained McCarthy. "It works perfectly and not much else around this place does."
In addition to archiving text and photos electronically, the software can automatically determine where and how to send an article. This, and the search system, may be a big plus for smaller newspapers as well as large ones. NewsView can pick up stories, convert them to different channels and export them -- without anyone there to even monitor the process. And, The Post claims, the software is easy to learn and use.
NewsView has earned a reputation for reliability at The Post.
"No one wants to read a paper a day late," said McCarthy. "And we have never missed a deadline."
Another plus for the NewsView system is its efficiency. Two years ago, the Post had fewer clients and the entire export process took 35 minutes. Now, it takes only eight minutes. "When you've done all your work for the evening and you save 20 minutes at the end, it makes everybody feel good and it gives us time to fix problems," McCarthy said.
Cost of the NewsView system ranges from $20,000 to $50,000, depending upon how many seats are licensed, said executives at Reed Technology. The average installation time is four days -- two days to install the software and two for training.
No one at The Washington Post is complaining. "I've been involved with systems for 20 years," McCarthy said, "And this is one of the best products I've ever seen in one of the most critical areas."
Reed Technology
215.682.5000
www.reedtech.com