Prepress
McClatchys Carolina Papers to Connect via CCI NewsGate Data Center
Thursday 24. January 2008 - Charlotte Observer to lead implementation of multi-newsroom, media-neutral content management system
The Carolinas will soon become home to CCI Europes first NewsGate data center. McClatchy Newspapers, taking their cue from the rapidly shifting press landscape, decided to pool resources and information between their publications by signing a contract for a NewsGate system.
The McClatchy papers included in this revolutionary new system are the Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) and the Rock Hill Herald (Rock Hill, S.C.) The Observer will serve as an information hub and go online in 2008 and the Herald will move to NewsGate and plug in shortly after, with the potential for five other McClatchy newspapers in the Carolinas to do the same. The NewsGate data center will allow editors and all media staff to coordinate efforts in story planning and coverage, saving work hours and money while increasing their ability to provide comprehensive coverage of the region.
“Once we saw NewsGate it became clear this is where we needed to go,” said Neil Mara, the Observers news systems director. “We need systems that help us in the shift toward a 24-hour, Internet-oriented news cycle. We looked at other available technologies and found none that give us the clear advantages that NewsGate provides. What excited us about NewsGate is the degree of innovation in its media-neutral architecture.”
One NewsGate innovation that appealed to McClatchy is the potential to enhance connections to existing media channels such as McClatchy Interactive, which provides Internet publishing systems for all McClatchy newspapers. “McClatchy plans to utilize common platforms such as NewsGate to promote content sharing and other synergies among its seven Carolina newspapers,” Mara said. “We see NewsGate as ideally suited to this kind of environment, and expect it to be a very important part of our multiple-media future.”
Also key is the data center setup, which allows multiple newsrooms to exist within one NewsGate system. The data center allows staff to review the budgets of sister papers and share all types of content dynamically.
McClatchy leads 31 daily papers and close to 50 non-daily papers in 15 states, making it the third-largest newspaper publisher in the U.S. Long a fixture on the West Coast, the McClatchy Company got its start during the California Gold Rush era of 1857 when James McClatchy helped found its first newspaper, the Sacramento Bee. More than 100 years later the company expanded into Alaska and Washington. In 2006, McClatchy acquired Knight Ridder, picking up newspapers across the country, from the Idaho Statesman in Boise to the Wichita Eagle in Kansas to the Miami Herald. It was also at this point that the Charlotte Observer, The State (Columbia, S.C.) and the Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) joined the McClatchy family.