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25 Amazing Online Newsrooms: Webinar and Best Practices Discussion

A brownbag webinar was held on May 14 featuring a presentation by Steve Momorella, owner and founder, TEKGROUP International. His topic, “25 Amazing Online Newsrooms” drew a nice crowd of 25 PR professionals and students. Many thanks to the San Antonio Area Foundation for hosting the event at the Pearl.

The presenter walked through 25 online newsrooms and gave a point-by-point assessment of each of the websites. He also shared a list of 25 essential elements for online newsrooms, including: 

•        Search
•        PR contacts
•        News releases
•        Digital press kits
•        B-roll & embed video
•        High-resolution photos
•        Thought leaders/SME
•        Background/company
•        Executive bios
•        Integrated social media
•        Email alert distribution
•        Integrated analytics
•        RSS feeds
•        Information request form
•        Search engine optimization
•        Events calendar
•        Crisis center/dark site
•        Sharing/social bookmark
•        Media contacts & lists
•        Campaign tracking

A discussion among the San Antonio attendees followed the webinar. People talked about their online best practices, asked questions of other attendees, compared notes, and said they were inspired to work on getting their own organizations’ online newsrooms up and running. 

Other webinars are scheduled for August 13 and November 12. Each brownbag event will include a webinar presentation that is selected specifically for San Antonio based on the preferences that members expressed in the survey that was conducted in November, 2013. The webinar events will include discussion and networking time.

By Gretchen Roufs