The Big Three for News: Then and Now
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

Thomson Reuters' (TR) NewsRoom used to be one of the Big Three news aggregators, now its news offering has evolved and FreePint finds out more about the company's strategy and plans for its news aggregation suite. Robin Neidorf examines how TR tailors its original professional and general news to a host of audiences, from compliance to financial professionals, legal, pharma, intellectual property, scholarly & scientific research and tax specialists.

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Several years ago, when the news aggregation market was configured significantly differently to its current shape, FreePint used to gear up each autumn for our “Big Three” comparative report. To create this report, we assigned a researcher with a strong back and good sense of humour to conduct in-depth testing of Factiva, Nexis and Thomson Reuters' NewsRoom. The resulting report compared the results across the so-called Big Three and provided our subscribers with a unique view of the strengths and weaknesses of each option.

It was always a challenging project: the researcher understandably never wanted to touch another news product again after surviving this one. Timing was invariably tricky. Coordinating demo dates, access and fact-checking with a single vendor is challenging; coordinating across three vendors is a nightmare.

The vendors themselves, whilst cooperative, were also sceptical of the true comparative value of the report. As with any product category, there are rarely true “apples to apples” comparisons to be made between offerings. Each vendor builds on its own strengths, as well as its perceptions of the needs of the marketplace, to create a product that addresses a particular set of issues. We can and do make comparisons across such variables as numbers of sources, languages, output options and other factors, but the question of “which one is best” is never something a third-party can answer for any customer.

In 2013, FreePint researches and reports on the news aggregation world quite differently to what we did then. Our FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation reflects the changes in the market, even in its title. We’re no longer even talking strictly about traditional aggregation products.

Thomson Reuters: the Evolution

In the meantime, the vendors themselves have made enormous changes in the way they approach the market – none more so than Thomson Reuters, the company behind NewsRoom.

Yet on first review of the Thomson Reuters website, it can be difficult to know where to start. The corporate site guides the visitor to different product groups, based on industry:

• Financial
• Governance, Risk & Compliance
• Intellectual Property
• Legal
• News Services
• Pharma & Life Sciences
• Scholarly & Scientific Research
• Tax & Accounting.

So far, so good. But “News Services” leads to products intended to support publishers and media outlets with Reuters’ proprietary newswire content – not aggregated news. After investigating each of the other industries, though, it becomes clear pretty quickly that news aggregation is an essential component of nearly every other product.

Developments in News Aggregation

To get an understanding of how Thomson Reuters and its product groups create an aggregated news foundation for all these products, FreePint conducted an interview with Steve Priem, VP, head of news aggregation, and Amy Stevens, executive editor of professional news. Through this discussion, we learned about developments in news aggregation since the days of NewsRoom, as well as where Thomson Reuters is heading with further developments.

“Reuters has journalists in every part of the globe,” explains Stevens. “We’re a leading news purveyor of original professional and general news. We can go narrow and deep, and we can also provide broader context. We can take generalist Reuters content and add to it to turn it into specialised coverage.”

“I’m excited about the enhancements that are possible when you integrate news and technology in the right ways,” says Priem. “For Eikon, for instance, we’re working closely on speed, since the currency of news and the speed of news awareness is of enormous value to the customer. We’re looking at the value proposition for each product and trying to figure out how to enhance it, based on best delivery of news through technology."

FreePint Subscribers can log in now to read more in Thomson Reuters: News Is Fundamental.

Editor's Note: Beyond Aggregation

This article is part of the FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation, which runs from October to November 2013. Register your interest, and you'll get pre-notification of when registration opens for any webinars in this series, as well as a free copy of the FreePint Report: Buyer's Guide on News Content when we publish in November.

FreePint Subscribers will be able to log in later this month to read reviews of Thomson Reuters products Westlaw and Eikon.

Readers in compliance may also be interested in the FreePint Topic Series: Compliance in Context.

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