55 journalists from 23 EBU Members are working together for three days (9 - 11 Oct) at ORF’s headquarters in Vienna to clear content from social platforms in a collaborative newsroom that aims to enhance the relevance of Public Service Media (PSM) news services.

Organised by the Eurovision Social Newswire (ESN) team, journalists, editors, producers, content creators and special events coordinators from EBU Members are working together to identify, verify and clear eyewitness media from all over the world.

The aim of the workshop is to allow newsroom journalists to enhance their skills and discover new workflows. There are no presentations, no sessions, and no speeches.  It’s a collaborative effort with diversity and PSM journalistic standards at its core.

With hundreds of hours of video being uploaded to social platforms every minute, eyewitness media is playing an ever-increasing role within the newsroom. Video from bystanders and activists emerges from across the world in its rawest form, in real time, as events unfold. Eyewitness media is an essential element of breaking news coverage today. On the day of the Las Vegas shooting the ESN team cleared almost 40 videos, 11 in the first 70 minutes following the incident.

In Vienna, seven different teams have been formed, each focusing on particular geographical regions, discovering and verifying content from news events in these locations.

Journalists have so far cleared footage of survivors rescued following deadly airstrikes on a market in Idlib province in Syria, a rally in Barcelona calling for Spanish unity, police in Belgium halting a Greenpeace protest and drone footage of the aftermath of gas explosions in Accra, Ghana amongst others. The material is also being shared on the @EBUAgile twitter feed.

ABOUT EUROVISION SOCIAL NEWSWIRE

With the news industry, and many organisations, in a transformative state, it is not always possible for newsrooms to effectively monitor social media for this emerging content. The Eurovision Social Newswire was created to add value to EBU Members' newsrooms and help them harness the power of reliable eyewitness media for their platforms.

Conceived as an extension to the already exclusive EBU’s News Exchange service, the Eurovision Social Newswire serves as an extension of EBU member’s newsrooms - providing the most important eyewitness media in real time.

Since February 2017 the Eurovision Social Newswire cleared and provided 6,200 pieces of content, both video and images, for Members, for use in broadcast, online players and social media platforms.

The Eurovision News Exchange Social Newswire is an EBU community-based newswire made up of over 500 journalists, editors and producers, collaborating in real time to discover, verify and clear the most newsworthy eyewitness media.

Membership of the Eurovision News Exchange Social Newswire is open to members of the European Broadcasting Union and News Exchange sublicensees only.