New Arc cooperation takes tech to Knight-Lenfest sites

Feb 05, 2018 at 06:11 pm by Staff


The US-based non-profit Lenfest Institute for Journalism is backing a cooperation with WaPo's Arc Publishing to develop new digital tools and share them with other publishers.

Lenfest owns the Philadelphia Media Network, and the initial technology partnership with the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post covers the Philadelphia Inquirer. It will help pay for Arc in Philadelphia, and will share best practices with 12 other newsrooms which are part of last year's Knight-Lenfest newsroom initiative

Under the agreement, the Arc Publishing platform will be implemented at Philly.com which draws content from the Inquirer and sister newspaper the Philadelphia Daily News.

Post chief technology officer Scot Gillespie says he hopes the collaboration will serve as a model for other major metropolitan publishers: "We are especially excited to work with those local news enterprises served by Lenfest's many industry initiatives."

Arc engineering team will assist in the transition late this northern spring, with the entire newsroom implementation to be finished by fall. PMN will also serve as a test lab for some of Arc's newest tools, continuing the culture of experimentation and innovation promoted by the Lenfest Institute.

PMN publisher and chief executive Terry Egger says he is pleased Philadelphia will serve as a laboratory for news innovation "in keeping with (cable TV entrepreneur Gerry) Lenfest's vision and the institute's mission".

Arc is now in use by a number of publications including the Los Angeles Times, the UK's Midland News Association and most recently, Le Parisien. Customers pay between $10,000-150,000 a month, according to Fast Company.

Sections: Digital business

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