EL PASO, TEXAS - This last April, KROD moved from a talk only station to
a News/Talk station by adding a locally produced morning newsblock from 5 to 9 am.
When the decision was made to add the morning news, one of the first things we discussed was
how to handle getting the Associated Press wirecopy into a computer.
It was obvious that leaving the AP teletype machine running 24-hours a day would bury us
in mounds of teletype paper and that sifting through the hours and hours of news stories
would be impossible for a staff our size.
We looked at several computer newsroom systems and decided on NewsBoss
from Broadcast Electronics.
The NewsBoss system was the only system we found that used the familiar “Microsoft Windows”
environment.
We purchased NewsBoss for three terminals, allowing several people to be reading wire copy
or writing stories simultaneously.
NewsBoss automatically sorts the news stories into what are called “News Queues”.
The queues are like folders, or subdirectories, that can hold the sorted news stories.
Each queue can be set to keep stories for a specific amount of time.
For example we keep weather data for only 6 hours but entertainment stories are saved for 30 hours.
The stories are automatically moved from the queues to the wastebasket at a pre-defined time.
There are over a dozen news queues which hold headlines, national news,
sports, entertainment and much more.
When a newsperson wants entertainment news, they simply click on the entertainment
queue and they are presented with all entertainment stories that have been sent in the past
30 hours.
The wire stories can be used as sent or can be re-written by the local newspeople.
The NewsBoss also allows the newspeople to write and edit their own stories on the system.
By far the most impressive feature of NewsBoss is the NewsBoss Prompter.
It’s like a TV teleprompter which scrolls the news across the computer screen.
With NewsBoss you can easily move to a completely paperless newsroom!
Other features of NewsBoss include a database for newsroom contacts
(the mayor, police contacts, etc.), and a system to track closings of schools
and businesses during bad weather.
When one system adds closings, the information is immediately available to all users
of the NewsBoss.
The NewsBoss Prompter also integrates with Broadcast Electronic’s AudioVAULT® allowing
easy insertion of audio cuts in the middle of a news story.
The prompter automatically cues up the proper audio cut at the beginning of the story.
When the newsperson reaches the place where the audio cut goes, he or she simply presses
start and the cut plays.
No more wrong actualities.
After only a few short months with the system, it’s hard to imagine
running a news operation with anything but NewsBoss.
Ron Haney, Director of Engineering
New Wave Communications,
KROD El Paso
rhaney@WHC.net
1998
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