Reuters Connect partners with seven more national news agencies to localise its international coverage

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Reuters has partnered with seven more national news agencies from across the world to provide a greater variety of content on its multimedia news resource, Reuters Connect.

Since launching in May 2017, the platform combines output from around 2,500 Reuters journalists in 200 locations globally, and it offers a multimedia library of 20 million assets, including text, video and pictures, with a quarter provided by its global international partners.

Now national agencies like Turkey’s Anadolu, Bernama from Malaysia and Scanpix covering Scandinavia and the Baltics, join a roster already consisting of PA Media in the UK, Aflo in Japan, ANI in India and more.

Justine Flatley, senior manager, partnerships at Reuters, said that news can focus too much on the largest economies, the largest countries and their political figures. The addition of the new partners will mean smaller countries and regions are not neglected from international coverage.

"Partnering with agencies means we have more feet on the ground, so we are in a stronger position to cover breaking news in every corner of the globe, and we have better access to more local events, which can sometimes be exclusively available to local agencies," she explained.

"It expands our network of journalists and opens up access to more local stories so that Reuters customers are best placed to receive the news."

At a time of 24-hour news and the constant need for the latest developments, having local content readily-available in one place is beneficial for all, she added. In particular, she highlighted its partnership with French picture news agency Panoramic, who were able to get pictures from the scene of the Notre Dame cathedral fire and quickly share that content with Reuters customers.

"I think we’ve become a more connected world and I think with some of our video content, especially with user-generated content, of which we have a really strong partner network. People feel like they can really connect with people from other parts of the world much easier."

Reuters Connect works as a two-way street, where partners can both supply and receive assets from the platform. Collaborating in this way, she added, better serves the news industry and, ultimately, the public.

“The ideological end goal is for every customer to be a partner and to have the ultimate news ecosystem on one platform.

“I think that serves to tell a better story, to tell it fast and altogether I think that works well for the public."

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