Information Sharing

It is envisaged that effective sharing of information across IFNCs will be critical to delivering the benefits they promise from collaboration across existing media and other organisations.

Listed below are a number of daily news scenarios which depend on effective information sharing to achieve an optimal outcome.

  • If multiple outlets wish to cover the same story, they need to be aware of both material already gathered on that story and plans for further gathering. Lack of such visibility will result in unnecessary duplication of effort and poor exploitation of existing material across the consortium.
  • To effectively assign reporting resource there must be visibility of available reporters across the group, where they are, what their skills and capabilities are, and what they are already committed to in terms of work load. Lack of visibility to this information will result in sub-optimal use of reporting resource.
  • When a story breaks, there needs to be visibility of all resources available in the area so that appropriate decisions can be made as to which resources to reassign to cover the breaking story. Lack of visibility of this information will result in poor resourcing of breaking stories.
  • Where a story originates locally which has potentially regional or national significance, there needs to be visibility of that story across the group so it can be exploited appropriately. Failure to do this will result in missed opportunities to exploit good local stories more widely
  • A mechanism needs to be in place through which non-diary driven story ideas can be put forward into an ideas pool which can be called upon to provide quality News output on a quiet news day. Failure to do this will leave editors and producers struggling for output when they are light on diary-based material


    • Establishing a mechanism through which the types of information above can be shared will put people working within an IFNC in a position where they have the information they need to make good decisions and do the right things.

    Establishing such a mechanism will also provide the leadership team the visibility they need to drive operational and editorial performance and enable them to demonstrate to DCMS and other stakeholders the benefits the IFNC is delivering through its collaborative structure.