Powering news production in the era of anywhere collaboration

The world of news production has changed significantly over the last few years. The COVID-19 pandemic forced newsrooms to adapt rapidly, putting the focus on remote workflows and changing the news environment forever. The days of news production teams being restricted to any one location are long gone – those involved expect the flexibility to work from anywhere. At the same time, producing news has become an always-on endeavor. The pressure is on to create content almost constantly and distribute it across a wide range of platforms. These two factors mean teams need to be supported by the right technologies and workflows.

While this all presents various opportunities for news and media organizations, it does also pose some challenges. For example, there will often be a lot of different stakeholders involved in productions. Organizations therefore have to ensure that all these contributors and creative teams can stay in touch, work efficiently, and complete tasks faster – whether they’re working in the facility, in the field, or at home. So, how can organizations bring journalists, producers, editors, and graphics teams together in a unified workflow? How can they stay connected and deliver stories faster to publish on air, online, and on social media? Our global broadcast and media product evangelist Craig Wilson recently spoke with two of our solutions specialists, Claudia Roth and Ola Kovtun, to explain how MediaCentral | Collaborate answers these questions and more.

The new news environment

Today’s news production is characterized by three main trends. First, the news cycle is 24/7; rather than waiting for a specific program, audiences expect to have access to news as soon as it happens. Second, news teams are distributed, giving rise to hybrid newsrooms that require workflows built for efficiency, remote collaboration, and media control. Third, audiences want their news to be accessible anywhere and everywhere. Whether through their phones, iPads, desktops, or social media, news must have a presence across more channels and touchpoints than ever before.

This is where MediaCentral | Collaborate comes into play. It’s designed to simplify complex projects by enabling collaboration across teams. Different stakeholders can work together regardless of their location – they can plan items, track their status, and receive notifications about tasks all through their browser or the mobile app. Producers can create, manage, and track the status of tasks in real time, as well as add and manage users and resources to ensure the most efficient news operation.

Most importantly, MediaCentral | Collaborate enables story-centric workflows (i.e. Considering stories as entities in and of themselves rather than just pieces of a news program.) Why does this matter? “We’ve seen story-centric working grow in importance as stories are no longer just distributed on one platform,” Wilson explains. “They’re being broadcasted and distributed online, including social. MediaCentral | Collaborate provides a single place where you can see everything that’s related to a story, helping all the different teams work together more effectively.”

The key factor is its ability to seamlessly tie the entire process together. MediaCentral | Collaborate embeds into existing production workflows, so it doesn’t add extra steps. Whether you’re a journalist working in the newsroom, a reporter on location, or a producer in an edit suite, MediaCentral | Collaborate provides a central hub for content creation.

Wilson adds: “News is a complex business. It can be very difficult to establish what’s going on, so MediaCentral | Collaborate is all about bringing the workflow together and enabling true remote collaboration.”

Total control

As well as creating efficiencies and enabling remote teams to work together more effectively, MediaCentral | Collaborate gives producers unparalleled control over content and their workflow. No more worrying about whether content has been delivered or having to chase on the status of assets. Instead, producers and editors have full visibility into exactly what’s happening. “Inside each story, users can go in and see the stats of projects, check sequences, and review everything they need to,” says Roth.

They can also easily share sequences to social media from within the MediaCentral platform. They can export the sequence directly to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, and publish it on all three platforms at the same time based on pre-defined templates.

And all of this functionality extends to mobile devices. Through the mobile app, team members can view all the assignments that the team is working on, add people to projects, access all the associated media, and review content from anywhere.

That’s the level of control, accessibility, and flexibility that news production teams need in order to set their newsroom up for success in today's shifting news environment. Powered by MediaCentral | Collaborate, organizations can solve their biggest production challenges and empower their teams to quickly, efficiently, and effectively from anywhere.

Want to collaborate from anywhere?

Find out more about how you can bring together journalists, producers, editors, and graphics teams in a unified workflow.

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