Announcing our New Collaboration with The Associated Press to Connect Newsrooms to Experts

For years we’ve been working to help enterprises and institutions connect their experts to a variety of audiences, including media. Today we announced a collaboration to integrate our expert directory into a number of The Associated Press software platforms. It’s exciting to be working with the world’s preeminent news organization to provide another resource for journalists, editors, producers and bookers to have direct access to credible expert sources.

Why The Associated Press?

AP has since 1846 been the leader in the news business, serving thousands of newsrooms in the newspaper, digital and broadcast industry. Half of the world's population sees content from the AP every day. Operating in more than 140 countries, they have the resources to cover a wide range of news. For years, they have sat in the front row of the White House press corps and officially reported the US election results. Around the globe they go to great lengths to get the story right, even in challenging areas such as North Korea where they operate a bureau. They also provide extensive entertainment and sports news, covering everything from the Academy Awards to NCAA college sport events. Licensed news syndication and photographic images from the AP are a critical part of how newsrooms around the world get their information.

The Expert Challenge

As news breaks and stories develop faster than ever, there is a constant demand for credible expert sources who can provide important facts and opinion. Yet, finding and connecting with credible experts remains a time consuming process for journalists and others in the newsroom.

As news breaks and stories develop faster than ever, there is a constant demand for credible expert sources who can provide important facts and opinion. Yet, finding and connecting with credible experts remains a time consuming process for journalists and others in the newsroom. Credible experts are indeed busy people who often are not the best “promoters” of their work. In fact, many don’t have the time or interest in updating their LinkedIn profile if they have one. Yet they may be renowned for their research and their ability to intelligently speak on a specific topic. While most universities, healthcare institutions and corporations are rich with experts, they have historically done a poor job in making it easy for journalists to discover and connect with them, particularly during breaking news, when time is of the essence. Disorganized websites chalked full of unmanaged, irrelevant or hidden expert information, plagues journalists every day. The online experience simply has to change.

Adding Value for Journalists

At ExpertFile, we’ve amassed a database of experts on over 25,000 topics with profiles that are updated by the communciations departments of leading organizations. It’s our close collaboration with them that we believe helps journalists get better access to experts. We’re providing organizations with a better way to collaboratively manage the biographical and multimedia content for their experts on their website and automatically synchronize it with our global directory used by journalists. In the end, these media relations professionals and their PR agencies want to be more responsive to journalists who are on deadlines.

Next Steps

Our first AP platform integration will be with AP Planner, an online editorial search and planning tool for newsrooms and other organizations including universities, governments and associations. AP Planner is a resource that all journalists and media relations people should know about. Containing over 140,000 future events to assist with editorial and communications planning, AP Planner provides an invaluable resource for identifying where newsrooms will be focused. Containing events that range from Senate Sub-Committee meetings, to key anniversary and observance dates to scheduled earnings calls on thousands publicly-traded stocks, AP Planner acts as an important industry-standard resource.

This month, our expert directory will be integrated into AP Planner from the main navigation screen. Also upcoming events in this platform will be dynamically matched to potential experts in our directory who may be of interest to journalists.

At ExpertFile, we set out to change the way experts can be discovered, evaluated and contacted. Now we’re on a mission to maximize access of this expert content to media outlets everywhere. Given the wide number of connections we can make between experts and thousands of national and local media outlets through The Associated Press, we’re excited to be helping the industry. As another resource for journalists to help start their search for experts we’ll be there to help. It’s our hope that we can make their lives easier and in the end have some measurable impact on the quality of the work they do to keep us all informed.