Web Watch
Online Media Center Raises ADB’s Profile
Story output nearly triples over a 5-month period
By Graham Dwyer ( gdwyer@adb.org)
External Relations Specialist
The Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s new online media center—a customized web site dedicated to disseminating news items and features about ADB to journalists—is helping raise the institution’s profile significantly.
“It’s a wonderful example of how information and communication technology is enabling us to hugely improve our news delivery system,” says Ian Gill, Principal External Relations Specialist.
“Previously, we would fax three or four news releases a week to the news agencies and they would run a few paragraphs that might be picked up by regional media. Now national media can directly access the full story—plus links to related items, and often a detailed report and photographs.”
By March 2003, the Online Media Center had drawn over 2,000 registrants—including 400 media—and the figure is rising steadily at around 300 a month. Many journalists choose to receive free e-mail alerts on major economic reports or news releases related to their area of interest.
A survey of media registrants in January found that more than 75% of the respondents use material from the web site www.adb.org/media between one and four times a week, a further 10% use it more than four times per week, and 56% visit the site at least once daily.
The Online Media Center is primarily for journalists, but the site has attracted many registrants from governments, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), academia, and the private sector. Access to embargoed materials, however, is restricted to media. Media registrants include news agencies Reuter, Agence France-Presse, Dow Jones, Jiji Press, and Xinhua; as well as publications such as International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, The Economist, Washington Post, and New York Times; and broadcast agencies.
“To take advantage of our improved delivery system, we have tripled our output of stories,” says Mr. Gill. “Earlier, because we didn’t want to clog up news agency fax machines, we used to limit news releases to loan approvals. Now we cover technical assistance approvals as well as projects, issues, meetings, reports, and publications.”
The Office of External Relations’ media team has expanded its story output by nearly 300%—from 131 to 385—over a 5-month period.
National media are now using more ADB stories, and at greater length. Between December 2002 and February 2003, stories that appeared exclusively on the Online Media Center featured at least 63 times in national media.
The news agencies have also expressed satisfaction with the new facility. In Manila, P. Paraameswaran, Agence France-Presse Bureau Chief, describes the Online Media Center as “a great resource.” Cutting and pasting from the web is faster and more accurate than retyping from faxes, he notes. He also appreciates the links and additional materials in the Online Media Center package that enabled him, for example, to write a feature on Asia’s high rate of traffic accidents.
In Fiji Islands, Peter Lomas, Managing Editor of the Pacific Islands News Association, says the facility has increased coverage of ADB in the Pacific.
Not surprisingly, the response from media is growing more quickly in regions where Internet use is fairly widespread, including East, South, and Southeast Asia.
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