Four times each year, a questionnaire from Netmedia lands in the M+AD Inbox, seeking an update on our people, our addresses and workflow details. Two minutes later, we return the completed form to Netmedia, and a few minutes after that our contact details are available to the business world.
Owner David Reade: “As the 20th century faded away I was looking for a new challenge. Journalism had led to PR and event management in the UK, but New Zealand didn’t have an editorial media directory and setting one up would help my fledgling PR business get going.”
But soon it became a fulltime preoccupation and now under the company umbrella of Netmedia Ltd, Reade runs MediaPasifika, Asianmediaonline and MidiaBrasil online.
A printed directory soon led to an electronic version — downloading updater files for the various Windows operating versions might have been disaster — but he was saved by the internet and web 2.0.
The Christchurch team at Digital Fusion created a software environment which enabled the creation of media target lists and the ability to hit the send or the schedule button to the individuals for delivery of text and pix.
“We land releases and photos with the right reporters at dailies, community papers, radio stations and Māori media within hours.”
Netmedia struck up a relationship with MediaMine to pick up the consequences, and progress now depended on achieving good service levels.
Eample: Every winter Smokefreerockquest attracts around 850 bands and soloists who compete live on stage in regions from Whangarei to Invercargill.
“MediaPasifika lets me land media releases and photos with the right reporters at dailies, community papers, radio stations and Māori media within hours of the results being announced,” Reade says. “I couldn’t do this job without it,’ says Nelson-based arts publicist Jacquetta Bell on the netmedianz.com website.”
Mediapasifika, in short, opens up the who, the what, and the where of all the media in New Zealand and the islands ― from Hawaii to Stewart Island. Print, radio, television, internet and blogs, audiovisual media are layered like a cake.
Its fillings are the business journals and magazines by topic, the radio and television networks and independent stations by region, and the social media topping. All the voices in the media, named and linked by email.
Next, the Caribbean
It includes indigenous and ethnic media in Australia and indigenous media from the countries on the west coast of south, central and north America to create an indigenous Pacific Rim database built in. Next on the agenda is the Caribbean.
Successive upgrades have changed the back office codes, but the interface, with its clean and direct access to media and their reporters, editors, presenters and producers, correspondents and bureau chiefs, offers all the options for carrying out media relations tasks for busy PR people.
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