Former NOTW web journalist launches newsgathering tool

A former web journalist at the now-defunct News of the World has released a tool he built to track breaking news headlines and releases of government data.

News Sucker, built by a journalist for journalists, allows users to follow breaking news, plus headlines under topics such as "media" and "politics" and releases of government statistics.

Simon Freeman, now a freelance journalist and web consultant, told Journalism.co.uk: "In my previous role at the News of the World I found that carefully looking through I could usually pick up something that made a lead every week."

Freeman said the idea came about "because I know most reporters don't really have a handle on Google News or the various other personalised aggregators".

"This one is carefully tailored to meet our needs," he said.

Freeman added that he will be expanding News Sucker: "I'm adding feeds to it as I find them and hope it will become a hub for breaking news and headlines."

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