MELVILLE, N.Y.—Newsday has evolved from its roots in print journalism into a multiplatform digital media organization, producing content for print, online, social and live programming. However, with that growth has come significant media-management challenges; more content means more files to be shared and accessed. We needed a faster, more collaborative way to work, improving our file organization and streamlining access to media content across all our departments.
Newsday started using Sony’s Ci Media Cloud platform in 2021, when remote collaboration capabilities were becoming particularly vital to our operations, especially coming out of the pandemic. Almost immediately, the benefits were clear: centralized organization, cross-departmental accessibility and increased speed, all crucial for covering both breaking news and long-term projects.
Efficiency in the Cloud
Ci accelerates the entire news production cycle from initial capture in the field to final delivery. Anyone in our organization can easily find and use media assets through a single, well-organized hub.
We had been using an on-premise server and FTP client; essentially a giant hard drive with folders, which meant metadata was limited and organization was always a challenge. Before any file could be shared, it had to be uploaded, downloaded locally, exported and then reuploaded, with every step taking valuable time away from our teams. Ci replaces that entire chain of steps with one streamlined process—it’s notably faster.
Organization has improved dramatically. We generate about 20 file requests daily and gather more than 600 files from the field. Ci’s metadata tools keep everything structured and searchable, and we can tag, label and organize massive volumes of video clips with precision. That helps us find what we need quickly, a critical capability when covering breaking news. Using the File Request feature, photographers in the field can preload content with all the right labels, which saves us enormous time once it hits the system.
Ci supports our direct field-to-cloud workflows, making it a central part of our modern breaking news strategy. We commonly feed live video directly from camera backpacks in the field into the cloud platform. This ability proved invaluable during coverage of a high-profile courtroom case, when Ci broke down workflow silos between field and studio crews.
We streamed two live camera feeds directly into Ci, giving TV and print teams real-time access to footage. Newsroom staffers who weren’t on site could watch press conferences as they happened and update their stories on the spot. In another instance, a video editor cutting a story in the field needed a clip from the original arrest of a suspect. With Ci, they instantly located and downloaded the footage, with metadata. That task would have been nearly impossible using our old system.
Ci also makes for seamless collaboration across long-term projects. Some of our stories unfold over months, even up to a year. With Ci, we can build shared folders and group assets in a way that makes it simple for different reporters, editors or producers to step in at any stage. The handoffs are smooth and no one wastes time trying to track down files.
Multiplatform Workflows
Over the past four years, Ci has grown with us as our newsroom has evolved into a multiplatform digital media house. Ci isn’t just a tool we use; it’s part of how we work every single day.
Ci bridges the gap between every part of our newsroom: print, TV, web, social and marketing. It provides universal access to our media and enables a unified, collaborative workflow. Sony’s Ci functions as more than a media management system; it supports nearly everything we do as a modern digital newsroom.
More information is available at cimediacloud.com.
