Online newsrooms are increasingly important resources for a more resource-poor, diverse, and fragmented media environment, yet few newsrooms have evolved in ways that are relevant to journalists. Journalists now seek help creating visual narratives in their stories, and except for Lookatmedia™, no online newsroom solution offers such a resource.
For the most part, online newsroom solutions are extensions of Press Release software. These organisations responded to the demand for online newsrooms by simply creating a place to reformat and park their clients' press releases in their software. In doing so, they provide journalists with a poor experience for journalists.
Branded online newsrooms are not a place to park your old press releases. They’re opportunities to create new ways to attract and engage a more diverse group of journalists. It's where you can blend breaking news with evergreen and backstories, Where you promote events and provide documentation that enables journalists to research and backstop their stories properly. Most important, it’s where you can create self-service access that drives real media connections and amplification of the stories that matter the most.
There’s something important missing from almost every online newsroom solution essential to journalists; visual content. Not just the odd spattering of images or a folder or two of low-res images and videos, the actual visual content of the calibre of the content journalist needs for every story today. Online newsroom solutions boast image management solutions. They even use phrases like ‘digital asset management and ‘image libraries, but looking closely, only one solution has an enterprise-level digital asset management solution at its core: Lookatmedia™.
In its day, the Swiss army knife was a toolbox in your pocket. Today, brands like Leatherman have taken that idea to an entirely new level. Lookatmedia™ has done the same thing with online newsroom software. Instead of simply extending the capabilities of press release solutions, we’ve built a ground-up online newsroom solution and PR tools with image, video, and brand asset management at its core and, in doing so, future-proofed brands against the increasingly important role of visual content in public relations, reputation management and media engagement.
