Futurity is Now

Jenny Leonard, editor, Futurity.org

I write often about the current trend in media relations to target pitches more incisively and to fewer places in order to achieve better results. It’s a dynamic shift in style for many professional communicators.

Whether mainstream print and broadcast or online media, journalists and bloggers look for stories, not press releases and traditional PR fluff. But, you’d be amazed by how the value of a story is lost in news releases.

One of the primary reasons for the Imperial Sugar Company’s online newsroom – ISCNewsroom.com – that my consultancy – The News Group Net - created and maintains is to deliver real news. The site is a landmark achievement in corporate America – a working online news resource that delivers timely and relevant stories of interest to everyone from investors to professionals in the sugar industry as opposed to a boring repository for traditional press releases. Launched in June 2009, the ISCNewsroom has quickly become the most popular online site in the sugar industry because of its credibility and informative stories and compelling “eye-candy” images.

Futurity.org

While working recently with the outstanding communications professionals at the University of Rochester and the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University, I learned of another clever site to consolidate news from academia – Futurity.org.

Futurity – edited by Jenny Leonard – has quite literally become the center of its universe by brilliantly aggregating interesting and appealing stories from leading research universities about important issues, including health and medicine, the environment, science and technology, and society and culture. The site is alive with great stories, and it’s popularity is soaring, too.

Why the success? Because Futurity.org focuses on delivering legitimate news stories … real stories. It’s Jenny’s job as editor to make it timely and to maintain a keen focus … and, the site delivers.

Using an exciting online news concept, smart editing, and the under-the-hood power of WordPress, I believe Futurity.org is one of today’s best online news resources in the academic world.

Category: Featured, Online Strategies