PR Newswire Joins Newsplex to Advance Corporate Communications
PRNewswire
NEW YORK

PR Newswire, the world's largest electronic distributor of news releases and a global innovator in corporate communications, has joined Ifra's Newsplex initiative to advance editorial skills and technology for the convergent marketplace of print, broadcast, online and wireless news media.

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Through PR Newswire's membership on the multinational Newsplex Directorate, the US$2 million Newsplex prototype multiple-media micro-newsroom will now expand the scope of its demonstration, training and research activities in crossmedia news handling to also provide support for a new generation of multi-skilled and multimedia-minded corporate communicators.

The beyond-the-state-of-the-art Newsplex facility being developed by Ifra, the world's leading association for media publishing, will open in November at the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, USA.

Backed by a directorate of the world's most forward-thinking media organizations, supported by an international affiliation of leading media education and training institutions, and advised by many of the industry's most highly regarded strategists, Ifra and the university will use the Newsplex to reinvent journalism education, to support professional news managers and their staffs in the rapidly expanding media environment, and to evaluate tools and methods for the emerging convergent news industry.

"Reaching the media in the most efficient way possible has been our primary focus since we began sending full text news releases electronically in 1954," said John M. Williams, PR Newswire executive vice president for global markets.

"Over the years, technology has allowed us to diversify our means of delivery and we constantly look to improve those methods. In this new Internet era, how we deliver and what we deliver for corporations has become increasingly important.

Company news now involves text, audio, video, archives that need immediate updating, and a variety of audiences with different interests. Being an integral part of Newsplex will allow us to answer those challenges and help in the building process of the new global news environment."

"Public news media and corporate communications divisions face many of the same organizational, technological and skills issues in seeking to enhance their relevance to the expanding Information Society and their viability in the burgeoning Information Economy," noted Kerry J. Northrup, executive director of the Ifra Centre for Advanced News Operations. "Both need to learn how to work across multiple media and how to integrate a variety of content to create new and more effective presentations of news and information. These are the issues around which the Newsplex is being developed and on which PR Newswire will help it focus."

PR Newswire, a subsidiary of United Business Media plc of London, provides comprehensive news targeting, distribution, and measurement services on behalf of some 40,000 organizations worldwide seeking to communicate with news media, the investment community and the general public. The company has offices in 14 countries and routinely sends its customers' news to outlets in 135 countries in 27 languages. Utilizing the latest in communications technology, PR Newswire content is considered a mainstay among news reporters and investors as well as increasing numbers of private individuals.

As a financial contributor to the Newsplex project, PR Newswire now holds a permanent seat on the Newsplex Directorate, a prestigious industry-academic consortium advising the facility's programs and directing its priorities for supporting advanced journalism education and news organization reengineering. The company will also receive preferential access to Newsplex training and support services, and be able to use the Newsplex in its own client training programs.

The Newsplex Directorate comprises the world's most forward-thinking media and media-technology companies. In addition to Ifra and PR Newswire, Directorate members are Digital Technology International (USA); Edipresse Groupe (Switzerland); South Carolina ETV (USA), which is hosting the prototype Newsplex facility on its campus; Jyllands-Posten (Denmark); Guardian Media Group Regional Newspapers (UK); CCI Europe (Denmark); The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (USA); IMPRESA (Portugal), Archronica Architects (USA), which is designing the prototype Newsplex facility; Star Publications (Malaysia); Morris Communications (USA); and the VTTS media business foundation (Finland).

For more information about the Newsplex and a copy of the project prospectus, contact the staff at info@newsplex.org or visit the facility's Web site http://www.newsplex.org/.

For more information about PR Newswire, contact the company at information@prnewswire.com or visit http://www.prnewswire.com/global/about/launch_about.html.

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Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020826/NYM069LOGO-a

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SOURCE: Newsplex; PR Newswire

CONTACT: Rachel Asche, Director, Public Relations, PR Newswire,
+1-212-282-1929, rachel_asche@prnewswire.com; or Ken Smith of Newsplex,
+1-803-777-2817, coordinator@newsplex.org