media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
company focusing on digital media, printed media, news services, and knowledge discovery through its BUTTER platform. In 1995 the company was the world's largest producer of health news.Fernandes, Manuela. "Health Letters: Let the Reader Beware." ''The New York Times'' News Service 18 Aug, 1995 The company publishes 194 newsweeklies in health and other fields, which are distributed to subscribers and partners including
Factiva
Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and free sources. Providing organizations with search, alerting, dissemination, and other information management ca ...
, the ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
Professional Edition'',
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
,
ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
, and Cengage Learning.Bellury, Phillip. ''Enlightening The World''. Atlanta, GA: The Storyline Group, 2009.C W Henderson founded the company in 1984 and its first publication was ''AIDS Weekly.'' Taylor, Ron. "Private Enterprise Jumps into AIDS Marketplace." ''Atlanta Constitution''. February 4, 1986 In the early 2000s, the firm added the imprint, VerticalNews to publish newsweeklies in non-health fields."NewsRx's VerticalNews Division Launches 86 Titles in Tech, Science and General Interest." ''Newsletter on Newsletters'' September 10, 2008 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/NewsRx's+VerticalNews+division+launches+86+titles+in+tech,+science...-a0186874438 Now based in Atlanta, Georgia, the company reports through its daily news service and publishes reference books through its partner,
ScholarlyEditions
ScholarlyEditions is a publishing imprint of ScholarlyMedia, LLC. The imprint publishes full-length eBooks in ePUB and PDF formats containing material from the over four million article summaries in the ScholarlyNews database of its partner, New ...
.Hasty, Susan. "Take Control of the News." ''ScholarlyNews and ScholarlyEditions''. ScholarlyMedia, 2011 http://www.scholarlyeditions.com/assets/pdf/scholarlyeditions-brochure.pdf NewsRx launched its BUTTER platform in 2015, which is a knowledge discovery engine that delivers its content to academics, researchers, and professionals.
History
The idea for the first newsletter originated at an international conference on AIDS sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). A staff member commented to CW Henderson on the need for a publication to condense the rapid rise in information about the disease. In 1984, Henderson created CW Henderson Publisher, which became NewsRx in 2004.
That same year, the company distributed its first journal, ''CDC AIDS Weekly'', (which split into ''AIDS Weekly'' and ''Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA'') to an international audience.Zimmerman, David, Lou Ziegler, and Patrick O'Driscoll. "6 Who Made a Difference." ''USA Today'' December 11, 1985Goss, Fred. "Charles Henderson Quietly Built one of the Largest and Most Successful Operations in Newsletter HIstory, Title by Title, Week by Week." ''Newsletter on Newsletters'' May 23, 2005 The first subscriber was the Soviet Union. Other subscribers include physicians, educators, government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies.Allison, David. "Atlanta's a Center for Health-care Newsletters." ''Atlanta Business Chronicle''. April 21, 1995
The articles in ''AIDS Weekly'' discussed social issues of the disease to medical research. The newsweekly included “shorts” to explain as much as was known about unfolding information and events.
Before the World Wide Web, NewsRx coordinated with the National AIDS Information Clearinghouse to provide information on the disease.Moore, Lisa. "AIDS Bulletin." ''U.S. News & World Report''. June 6, 1988: 83 The ''CDC AIDS Weekly Infoline'' provided a list of upcoming AIDS seminars as well as names and addresses of over 65 AIDS periodicals published worldwide.
The information published in ''AIDS Weekly'' came primarily from the government organization
Centers for Disease Control
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC). Though the newsweekly had no direct ties to the CDC other than as a source for information, a CDC official described the publication as “highly informative.” Other sources of information for this and other titles were the nearby
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
medical library and international agencies. Articles included summaries of peer-reviewed research, conference reports, news releases, and compilations from other health and medical organizations.
However, in the beginning, some critics were offended by the fact that NewsRx was a non-governmental agency distributing statistics that were available for free in official versions frrm the government.Laermer, Richard. "A Source of News on AIDS." ''Editor and Publisher'' September 5, 1987 (see Controversy)
In 1988, the firm added ''Cancer Weekly''Ricklefs, Roger. "Medical Newsletters on AIDS Therapies Crop Up Across U.S." ''The Wall Street Journal''. October 4, 1988 and it added ''Blood Weekly'' in 1993. The company added ''Vaccine Weekly'' in 1995, followed by over 100 more medical-related titles.
In 1999, the firm also adopted ''
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
Journalist'' (AIJ) which uses robotics,
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
,
algorithms
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
, logic, and
automated reasoning
In computer science, in particular in knowledge representation and reasoning and metalogic, the area of automated reasoning is dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning. The study of automated reasoning helps produce computer prog ...
to provide
computer-assisted reporting Computer-assisted reporting describes the use of computers to gather and analyze the data necessary to write news stories.
The spread of computers, software and the Internet changed how reporters work. Reporters routinely collect information in dat ...
and data driven journalism. The software shortens the time from news event to news distribution.
In 2007, the firm introduced VerticalNews.
The firm also adopted site licenses, including the ability for users to download reports showing the types of information used in a given organization—information previously restricted to the NewsRx staff. The system recognizes IP addresses to facilitate research activities.
On April 22, 2015, NewsRx announced hiring new VP and Publisher Kalani Rosell. The business development office opened in 2016 in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
, headed by Rosell.
BUTTER
In 2015, NewsRx started BUTTER, which stands for Better Understanding Through Technology & Emerging Research, a business intelligence and data analytics platform with emerging research and new discoveries. It has content for researchers, academics, and investors, using a New Discovery Index (NDI) that analyzes discoveries worldwide by quarter and new discoveries within specific topic areas.
BUTTER uses a search engine and publishes 10,000 new articles a day (11.4 million articles as of March, 2016).
BUTTER's platform creates content 30 minutes after stock markets close, monitoring all market movements, new SEC and patent filings, trademarks, and financial and investment decisions.
Controversies
NewsRx is staffed by journalists rather than medical professionals.Fernandes, Manuela. "Reading All About It: Newsletters growing in number, but not all information is reliable." ''Atlanta Journal''. August 16, 1995 At the company's beginnings, ''Newsweek'' magazine commented that ''AIDS Weekly'', as a non-government entity, should not be reporting on topics that included policy, research, and statistics that some considered exclusive to the government. The head of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC) AIDS task force at the time was misquoted as stating that he disagreed with having the CDC name associated with the newsweekly. On the contrary, every issue of the ''CDC AIDS Weekly'' included an advisory caption, “…not sponsored by, endorsed by, affiliated with, or officially connected with the CDC.” Other staffers within the CDC supported NewsRx's view to bring AIDS awareness to the public eye. The ''
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' reported that ''AIDS Weekly'' was a necessary “watchdog” publication providing needed information to the public. Other articles appeared supporting NewsRx in the ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', and ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'', for what they said to be its impact in AIDS awareness and investigative journalism.
CW Henderson's role as executive editor at the firm was discussed in an article in ''Editor and Publisher'', focusing on the influence of pharmaceutical companies on news publications.Nicholson, Joe. "Of Mice & Men: Is there too much hype in media's medical stories?." ''Editor and Publisher''. October 3, 1998 Henderson opposed pharmaceutical company influence on reporters as well as premature reporting of experiments.
The firm was also involved with ''The New York Times'' in controversial breaking news about AIDS studies that had purposely been tampered with at the CDC.Schneider, Keith. "Tampering Uncovered at AIDS Research Lab." ''The New York Times'' p.1 September 17, 1986 https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/17/us/tampering-uncovered-at-aids-research-lab.html On at least 5 occasions, research on the causes of AIDS and other viral diseases might have been tampered with. ''CDC AIDS Weekly'' published an internal CDC memorandum on the incident.
In 2010, the firm's VerticalNews China was the subject of a
denial of service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
that originated from China as a result of controversial news reported. The attack was halted when the company's IP service identified the source and blocked it.
Partnerships
In 2011, the firm partnered with
ScholarlyMedia
ScholarlyEditions is a publishing imprint of ScholarlyMedia, LLC. The imprint publishes full-length eBooks in ePUB and PDF formats containing material from the over four million article summaries in the ScholarlyNews database of its partner, NewsR ...
’s
ScholarlyEditions
ScholarlyEditions is a publishing imprint of ScholarlyMedia, LLC. The imprint publishes full-length eBooks in ePUB and PDF formats containing material from the over four million article summaries in the ScholarlyNews database of its partner, New ...
imprint, publishing 4,000 reference books, which replaced the EncyK line. The president of NewsRx is also president of ScholarlyMedia."ScholarlyEditions." ''ScholarlyEditions''. ScholarlyMedia, 2011. http://www.scholarlyeditions.com/ The company's book imprint is ScholarlyEditions, and its peer reviewed news service is ScholarlyNews.
The company's partners include:
* Dow Jones Factiva and the ''Wall Street Journal Professional Edition''- For 20 years, NewsRx articles have been available through Dow Jones sources."NewsRx.com: eHealth Evolution; global partnerships for health, biotech news offerings announced." ''Business Wire''. October 19, 2000
*InfoDesk – InfoDesk allows NewsRx content to be available to desktops, websites, and business applications including site licenses.
*
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
– The partnership between Reuters and NewsRx began 20 years ago, and with Thomson 10 years ago. In 2008, the two companies merged.
*
Cambridge Information Group
Cambridge Information Group (CIG) is a privately held global investment firm focusing on information services, education and technology. It began as a firm providing services to academic publishers. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
As ...
(CIG) – NewsRx content is available through
ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
, Dialog, and Datastar.
*NewsEdge – NewsEdge, a division of Acquire Media, and NewsRx have been partners since 1991.
* Cengage Learning - Cengage Learning's
Gale
A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).
Rankings
The company's rankings include:
:* Amazon's Alexa 2011 PageRank: #5 News and Media Site for the Pharmaceutical Industry "Top Sites." Alexa . Amazon.com, http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Business/Biotechnology_and_Pharmaceuticals/Pharmaceuticals/News_and_Media
:*Google 2010 PageRank: #2 Among Top Health News and Media Publications
:*Google 2010 PageRank: #2 Among Top Science Publications in Biology/Physiology
:*Google 2010 PageRank: #2 Among Top News and Media for the Business of Pharmaceuticals
:*Amazon's Alexa 2010 PageRank: #2 News and Media Site for the Pharmaceutical Industry
:*eHealthcare Leadership Award, Best Health/Healthcare Content 2011