PA advances its newsroom transformation with the launch of enriched digital feeds for customers

  • The news agency has undertaken a major overhaul of its editorial systems to support a digital-first approach to content creation
  • Newly-launched enriched feeds see stories from PA presented as a mix of words, images, video, graphics, social media and more
  • For the first time, customers will be able to search and download across all PA’s storytelling assets in a single portal
  • PA will complete its editorial switchover with its News and Sports desks in early 2018

PA (Press Association) – the national news agency for the UK and Ireland – has introduced a new suite of enriched content feeds as it transforms its newsroom to support digital-first production for an increasingly diverse customer base.

The new products are part of PA’s transformation into a digitally-led news and information business under Editor-in-Chief Pete Clifton. In line with this strategy, PA has combined its wire and online teams to create a broader range of content around nine core themes, and refocussed its output into enriched digital feeds which present all stories as a compelling mix of words, images, video, graphics, social media and more.

The enriched feeds cover News, Sport, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Science & Technology, Finance, Real Life, Motoring and Viral.

A new way of working

The changes to PA’s newsroom follow the biggest overhaul of the agency’s editorial systems in its 150-year history. PA has moved to a new content management system (CMS) which gives its journalists a single workflow for creating rich media stories and text versions for the wire, as well as a central point from which to distribute content to any customer platform. The new CMS enables PA’s editorial teams to scale up their output for a growing number of online and corporate customers.

Seven desks – Entertainment, Lifestyle, Science & Technology, Finance, Real Life, Motoring and Viral – have switched over fully to the new production process, with the agency’s News and Sports desks set to follow in early 2018. The complete switchover of the agency’s editorial desks will see PA’s core service delivered as a multimedia offering, with journalists creating content with multiple assets as a matter of course.

Creating value for customers

In tandem with the unified production process, the agency is developing PA Explore – a single portal from which customers can access all its output. The current iteration of PA Explore provides customers with a hub for all the newly-launched enriched digital feeds, and is fully responsive and optimised for mobile devices to aid reporters in the field, news broadcasters and a range of others accessing PA content on the move.

From PA Explore, customers can also sign up for new content packages, including PA Ready. Available now, PA Ready comprises a stream of multimedia articles, galleries, social-led quizzes and more, curated and updated throughout the day. The package is HTML5-ready and designed to plug straight into customers’ CMS’s.

When completed in early 2018, PA Explore will:

  • Allow customers to search, monitor and download all the agency’s storytelling assets, giving them the option to take ready-to-publish content from PA, make a self-selection from the agency’s full range of assets to build their own stories, or receive real-time news updates
  • House all new content packages and services from PA, including output from RADAR, the automated news service which will provide up to 30,000 data-driven stories each month for local media outlets

Pete Clifton, Editor-in-Chief at PA, said:

“This is a genuinely transformational moment in PA’s history; real changes that we have made in the newsroom are allowing us to create flexible content for our customers, and more of it. By moving to digital-first production we can supply a new generation of products to publishers of all descriptions on a previously unattainable scale.

“Over the last few months we have undergone a mammoth project of transformation within PA which has seen us implementing a new content management system, managing a phased rollover of our editorial desks, running different editorial systems concurrently and training our journalists and production staff, all while offering an uninterrupted service to our customers.

“The result is a set of enhanced feeds which give customers more opportunities to monetise richer and more engaging content on their own digital platforms, and more easily integrate PA content into their workflows.

“Though we continue to evolve the way we work, our core editorial values remain unchanged. PA will remain the home of fast, fair and accurate journalism, and provide unparalleled wire services to all our customers.”

ENDS

PA Editor-in-Chief Pete Clifton will be expanding on the agency’s newsroom transformation in a live webinar on Tuesday 14 November at 1400 GMT. To join, please visit the registration page on the PA website.