ScoopPro - Helping PR Professionals Get More Out Of Scoop

Thursday, 7 December 2017, 3:02 pm
Article: Scoop Publishing

Scoop.co.nz has been a fixture of New Zealand’s news and Public Relations infrastructure for over 18 years. Scoop is an important research tool, current awareness news service and channel for communicating messages for those in the sector. Our analysis shows that Public Relations and communications professionals make up a significant portion of Scoop’s daily users.

All Scoop content is available to the public free of charge, indexed and searchable via search.scoop.co.nz and global search engines. Many people in the industry take for granted that this free stream of breaking news and public news archive will always be around. However, without the financial assistance of those using Scoop in a professional context in key sectors such as Public Relations and media, Scoop will not be able to continue this service.

Scoop is committed to maintaining this free public access, and by extension ensuring an audience for your clients’ news items. We have now developed what we believe is a fair way to ensure that Scoop’s future is secure - ScoopPro. We now require PR firms whose material we publish and distribute, and who routinely access Scoop for research, to purchase a ScoopPro license in order to remain within our copyright terms.

>>Subscribe to ScoopPro Now<<

We are the Media so we understand your business. PR professionals guide public perception by effectively managing and planning the timed release of "thought-leadership" material. In order to stay ahead of the game, you therefore require advanced and authoritative knowledge available at your fingertips. You also need a method of responding to high-value news events, enabling you to tell your client's version of the story. Scoop is a highly-tuned news instrument that provides an honest, equitable, and reliable method of telling these stories. Frankly, if you don't already use Scoop, we’d argue you're not doing your job properly!

We publish around 1000 news items per week to the main scoop.co.nz website and several sub-sites. Each day 210,000 Google search queries return Scoop indexed pages for searchers seeking information about a myriad of New Zealand subject matter and each month 500,000 users access the Scoop site. Scoop’s usage patterns are proof that Scoop is indeed the home of NZ’s National Debate.

In addition, all news on Scoop is tagged by category and relevance and published to our ScoopPro commercial news subscription service clientele. This readership includes decision-makers such as politicians, parliament, Government Departments and private sector executives as well as a over 180 other ScoopPro licensed organisations across a range of sectors.

Because of its wider pool of content creators and contributors, Scoop frequently publishes news about issues that does not make it into the mainstream media. Many PR firms regularly send us press releases on behalf of their clients which we almost always publish. As a result, Scoop covers the issues relevant to your firm’s client base across a range of sectors more consistently with a wider range of content and with greater frequency than other media. This kind of unmediated coverage is no small matter for PR Professionals seeking to stay on top of the latest developments and to fulfil their primary roles of promoting their clients’ interests and keeping them informed.

The ScoopPro Agency package also includes a suite of highly useful information tools tailored specifically for those in the PR and media sector to make your Scoop experience better.

>>Click to learn more about ScoopPro Agency<<

Advertising - as a reliable means for funding our publishing operations - dried up in 2014 with the advent of Facebook and Google as advertising channels. Scoop receives no Government grant or institutional support, and the fact that it has survived this long is testament to the tenacity of its founders, core supporters and staff. We are now facing challenges from international competitors without the same dedication to providing open public access and amplifying the voices of all New Zealanders.

Scoop is an important public service - a rare example of a publisher that serves the wider community democratically and does not pick and choose what we cover provided it meets our editorial criteria. We give voice not only to the PR community in NZ, but also provide consistent coverage of local government, community, Pacific issues as well as other sectors and forms of news which increasingly slip through the cracks left by a decaying traditional news media industry.

Imagine for a second if you will, a New Zealand media environment which lacks Scoop as a clearing house recording in real-time and making available to all, the activities and views and work of all aspects of New Zealand society. Scoop provides a reliably curated indelible record of what was said and who said it, which is accessible to everybody on their phone. Its disappearance would leave a gaping hole in the public record archive of New Zealand and remove a valuable channel used by many.

Widespread compliance with the ScoopPro model by the Public Relations and media industry can help avoid this scenario. This will help us continue providing and maintaining this much used news service - not only to you and your clients, but by extension to society at large (AKA your audience).

>>Subscribe to ScoopPro Now<<

Scoop is Comprehensive - it is a highly-tuned, high-resolution news instrument that provides a comprehensive, reliable, and authoritative picture of all political, business, and social activity. We’re a "one-stop shop" that publishes all news items on both national and local levels - supplying information that's simultaneously extensive and all-inclusive, exhaustive and thorough, in-depth and wide-ranging. Unabridged access to public information is made available to everyone for free via Scoop. We estimate that 50-70% of the news reported on Scoop is not reported by any other media organisation.

Comprehensive Archive and Research Tool - Scoop is the deepest go-to research repository of New Zealand full-text news information containing nearly 1 million pages of information and thousands of images, audio files and video. We maintain the only completely comprehensive and publicly-accessible news search archive available in New Zealand. If you're searching for detailed news content from the late C20th onward, Scoop is the only trustworthy and reliable source - which is why we're the top-ranked Google delivery vehicle for this kind of information. In short, only Scoop provides complete historical news coverage for the digital age and reaches a huge number of NZers as a result - we have a proven track record that demonstrates this! At the end of this article are examples that demonstrate the breadth and importance of this coverage for PR sector staff, students and researchers.

Scoop Has a Large Audience - Most niche news services that provide free services have relatively small audiences and don't provide comprehensive coverage. Scoop provides complete coverage and reaches many more consumers - and we have a proven track record that demonstrates this.

Scoop is timely and relevant - Unlike many other news outlets, we publish instantaneously, thus providing up-to-the-minute access to the very latest, fast-breaking news items. Scoop’s professional news users who like to remain at the front end of the news cycle can subscribe at Scoop (Newsagent.scoop.co.nz) to a “filtered” full text/news summary - emailed stream of relevant news. [Note: Additional fees apply for Premium Newsagent services.]

During the working week it is far from uncommon for Beehive and other news stories to be published on Scoop hours before they appear on the Beehive Website. Also because we publish media releases they can appear as much as a day or two before the conventional media outlets have turned the content into journalist written stories. Scoop’s readers literally see the raw material that makes the news on Scoop before the mainstream media outlets turn it into mediated stories.

Scoop is Accurate - Scoop has a consistent track record of providing reliable and authoritative information. We read our press releases and review and tag them by category. This process ensures complete clarity and transparency, as opposed to robot service providers employed by many of our competitors.

Zero "Spin Factor" - Scoop’s coverage has no-spin factor as opposed to much of the mainstream news media which generally takes Press Releases and puts their own spin, opinion or comment into the story while often leaving out the crucial details.

SEO Optimization - ScoopPro provides unmatched search engine optimization and conversion funnels to PR professionals through our InfoPages feature. This feature enables you to add your logo, bio and contact backlinks on your unique Scoop.co.nz page or even on all story pages on Scoop.

We Increase Your Leverage - You measure your performance to clients by calibrating "advertising equivalent value." Scoop significantly increases this leverage by providing direct access for your clients to a highly influential audience. Scoop can target your audience demographics directly (e.g. we deliver direct to Parliament).

Free indigenous advertising
Traditional media (magazines, newspapers, TV) and some websites often charge advertising rates to dress press releases up as "advertorial." Scoop's innovative approach does not try to disguise or restrict content but simply publishes releases in their original form provided they meet our standards.

ScoopPro is Affordable -
Scoop provides excellent value for money and is highly affordable. Our new business model of tiered-pricing means we simply ask that ScoopPro Agency clients pay an annual fee based on the number of employees and clients in your agency. Scoop is much less expensive than most of our competitors in the “subscription” news space, most of which provide more niche content to smaller audiences.

Competitors that charge for their services on the other hand are significantly more expensive. Scoop provides excellent value for money and is highly affordable. ScoopPro annual fees are roughly the equivalent of just two press releases issued through some paid channels.

>>Get ScoopPro Today<<

Keep yourself and your clients informed

ScoopPro offers a regular (daily /weekly) Media Sector Broadcast newsletter which summarises all the Media Industry related content on Scoop’s various news sites and wires and emails these to your inbox.

ScoopPro also allows you to opt-in to receive your choice of our other Broadcast Newsletters including each NZ region, Over 15 sector-specific offerings from tech to daily politics and banking and finance. You can choose as many as may be relevant to your firm and your client base.

Get Your Clients’ Message Out

ScoopPro provides the opportunity for your client organisations’ items to be seen by a wide public and professional audience. Items are published directly on Scoop.co.nz bringing them the public’s attention and they are also included in our Newsagent commercial subscription service (and third party services) delivering them to the inboxes of important decision-makers such as politicians, parliament, Government Departments and private sector executives.

ScoopPro Agency clients also now receive an InfoPage - a homepage for your PR Firm on Scoop.co.nz which aggregates all your published content on a page with a bio, logo and links to your website. This makes the organisation more visible and searchable on Scoop and Google and is highly useful from a Marketing and SEO perspective. You can also add additional InfoPages for your clients at a discounted rate.

ScoopPro is built upon an innovative ‘ethical paywall’ licensing model. As with most of other information suppliers we assert copyright over our published content. However the ‘public good’ aspect of our mission is “to be an agent of positive change,” and we do not want to use a content blocking paywall that would prevent the wider society from using Scoop. This is an innovative approach (although it makes our revenue generation model more challenging) and is in stark contrast to many other publishing providers who hide content from non-paying customers.

To date we have more than 180 organisations licenced as ScoopPro clients, including many PR firms who find ScoopPro to offer good value and also believe in the ‘public good’ benefits of supporting the continued existence of this platform.

However, to continue to provide our important services and to make improvements and generate more original reporting and journalism on important public interest matters, we need to gain the financial support of a significant chunk of key sectors such as the PR and media sector.

We trust that any PR professionals reading will either make the call to support or refer this on to the people with decision-making power to do so. We need a groundswell of champions who care about public access to information in order to ensure those making the decisions really understand what is at stake here.

>>Support ScoopPro<<

ScoopPro is charged on a tiered system based on the number of FTE staff in the organisation. The charges are very affordable considering the value gained from the associated professional News Intelligence and PR services. We believe there is a clear precedent for this request. Many PR Firms are already paying far greater sums for access to many other information subscription sources, despite the fact these services do not have the added benefit of being available at no cost to the public.

Scoop would be delighted to welcome all PR Professionals or organisations onboard as ScoopPro licenced users. We believe you will be more than happy with the additional services offered and will be doing their part to support a well informed society and independent media. The ScoopPro Team is very happy to provide any more information required to present a proposal to a resource acquisitions committee or board meeting and are available for consultation.

>>You can find more information or apply now here<<

The ScoopPro team.

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Research Cases Studies

This research into Scoop’s coverage has been conducted by Scoop Foundation Trustee Jan Rivers - a former research librarian (Department of Labour, Information Centre and Local Government New Zealand). Jan is working with Scoop because she believes it is an important research tool and resource for New Zealand’s democracy.

Example 1 - Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman
Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman of Otago University is referenced in 118 Scoop articles dating back to 2000 including media releases directly from Otago University as well as stories sourced by numerous other advocacy and political organisations.
In contrast Professor Howden-Chapman is found in other media much less frequently and the stories published date back only a few years. The following results show the difference:
• Scoop 118
• Stuff 80-100
• TV3 0
• TVNZ 0
• NZ Herald 37
• Otago Daily Times 36
• Māori TV 0
• NBR 7

Example 2 - Policy Tool by the Spinoff
In the leadup to the 2017 National Election Scoop partnered with media company The SpinOff and Policy New Zealand on a new policy tool allowing people to compare political party policies. This tool was powered by Scoop’s archive of content which allowed the developers to populate the policy positions. Policy positions were developed across 10 major categories (health, education, economy, te Ao Māori and so on) and approximately 40 sub-categories with straightforward information sourced directly from the political parties’ media releases published on Scoop. This clearly demonstrates the comprehensiveness and up-to-date nature of Scoop’s resources.

Example 3 - TISA
The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) was a trade agreement in which New Zealand was a participant in 2014. In June 2014 even before a Wikileaks leak made the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) visible to the rest of the NZ media, Scoop already had eight separate stories referencing the agreement sourced from NZ and overseas. References in the rest of the NZ media amounted to a single passing mention in the in the Otago Daily Times.

Example 4 - NZME/Farifax Merger
Earlier this year the Commerce Commission received an application by NZME and Fairfax Media for a proposed merger. Although the two organisations are amongst NZ’s biggest media organisations they cited 9 Scoop Media articles - more than from any other media organisation including the participants themselves - to describe and support their case.

Example 5 - Sir Geoffrey Palmer Speech
Sir Geoffrey Palmer made a major speech in February 2015 on the international legislation arrangements related to climate change. In the rest of the online NZ media – including NBR, Stuff, the NZ Herald and TVNZ there was not a single mention. In contrast Scoop has published not only the press release but the entire speech. It was regarded as so significant in the circles of people who heard about it that I received the PDF several times by email.

Case Study 5 - Legal Aid Changes in 2015
In February Auckland Barrister Frances Joychild published an important article on the Auckland District Law Society site about the impacts of changes to the Legal Aid system on people with civil cases and their lawyers. The changes meant only the very poorest are now eligible for assistance. The tales of desperation Joychild describes are heart breaking and described our Courts being full of with desperate people trying to represent themselves, or worse taking the law into their own hands. Although it was widely circulated to the media it appears no news site published a story about this issue in the mainstream media at the time. If it weren’t for Scoop this story would not have gone beyond the legal community. Scoop however published a press release on the matter.

Case Study 6 - ‘News, Renewed’ Research
The ‘News Renewed’ Study was an innovative research study carried out by Alex Clarke at Victoria University in 2014 on whether people would be willing to pay for online access to news. There was no coverage of this important story on other New Zealand news web sites. The information was, however, published on Scoop. Incidentally, the answer to this research question was yes – provided that the offering and the price is attractive. Alex Clark has since gone on to found PressPatron - a crowdfunding platform for Journalism now being used by Scoop.

© Scoop Media

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