Pulsar is developing a fully integrated social and media monitoring solution, and to support this, we launched News+, which consists of a multitude of global and regional news sources that are essential for Media Monitoring. Last month, we doubled down on our Online News coverage, giving our clients access to 3+ million online news articles a day. This month, as of the 24th of March, we will be adding Print News as a new data source. Our Print News data source will consist of the following:
Global Print (LexisNexis)
UK & French Print (NLA)
We have plans to expand into South East Asia and Australia and New Zealand in the coming quarter, so watch this space!
What is Print News?
Print News data is a collection of printed newspaper and magazine articles that are provided in the form of full text or hosted scanned PDF files or clippings (eClips). In the UK, this data comes from the NLA, whilst LexisNexis provides global coverage from a comprehensive range of media outlets.
What does the data look like?
One of Pulsar’s USPs is that we developed TRAC as a channel-agnostic platform, meaning it doesn’t matter where the data comes from, or what type of data it is. The data will look and behave the exact same way as any data that we currently collect on Pulsar. As such, you’ll be able to: filter and segment your data using our extensive filtering capabilities; leverage our powerful text AI to analyse and understand your print media content; see how your print coverage compares to your social and online media coverage; get an all encompassing view of which journalists are influential, and do all of this with one query and in one dashboard.
That said, there are some caveats to keep in mind though.
For starters, NLA Print data comes with specific display requirements that Pulsar needs to abide by. We can only surface a maximum of 256 characters, which includes the article title. On Pulsar this will mean the Results view will only display the first 256 characters of the print clip. Users will have the option to click on the PDF link provided in the Results view to see the full article on the NLA’s site, using their NLA credentials. Users can still however perform full-text searches on the entire body of content, as you would with any data source in Pulsar.
For FT Print, which is also provided via NLA, we can only display the headline, plus the first 140 characters of the article. Similarly, you will also be able to perform full-text searches on the entire body of content using any of the Pulsar filters available.
For LexisNexis Print content, we can display the full text in the Results view on Pulsar and you can filter for your results as normal, so this one is pretty straight forward!
How do I access Print News?
Now that you have all the details on what the data looks like, let’s move onto getting access. Print News data will be available on TRAC in Topic and Panel Searches, but first and foremost we need to iron out the details around licensing, and what sort of access this gives you.
NLA Print Licence
NLA Media Access (Newspaper Licensing Agency) is a publisher-owned rights licensing and publisher services business with the core aim of supporting journalism in the UK. With this type of licence, you are able to access print and magazine content from the UK, France as well as Financial Times. This is a licence you will need to obtain directly from the NLA, which is then configured into your Pulsar account.
LexisNexis Print Subscription
Print data from LexisNexis (LN) is a collection of clipped articles from around the globe, printed in newspapers, journals, magazines etc. of various fame and scopes of distribution. These clipped articles are uploaded and translated into text content, which you can collect via LexisNexis. Whilst you don’t need a LexisNexis licence per sei, accessing this data comes at an additional cost and subscription. You will also need to agree and sign the LexisNexis Terms of Service.
Once your Team Subscription on Pulsar has been updated, you’ll be able to see the Print Source and the licences available for your Team at Search Setup, and in your Data Management Dashboard, as shown below:
Can I get access to Historical data?
Short answer, yes! But there are some nuances that we need to clarify.
Historical data for NLA Print content is available for the last 6 months, whilst for LexisNexis, this is available for the last 60 Days. In addition to this, we have to abide by the NLA and LexisNexis’ data retention policies.
For NLA, we can retain the truncated version of the eClip for 2 years, and depending on your NLA licence, you may still be able to view the PDF links on the NLA website when you click through your results from Pulsar. With LexisNexis we can retain the articles for 90 days, after which we are required to delete the data from the Pulsar database. Data will be removed from running, paused, archived as well as historics only searches.
Any special considerations for Real Time data?
Data collection for NLA Print content is embargoed between 12am and 4am (GMT). This means that we are not permitted to deliver NLA print content via Pulsar between these hours. We will resume collection at 4am, and then every 6 hours, thereafter. LexisNexis Print content on the other hand is not embargoed and will be collected every 6 hours.
How do I manage my data usage?
Given the cost per article, we have implemented some additional functionalities to help manage your print data usage and keep your mind at ease.
Your print data allowance will be configured at Team level under Plan Allowance.
You will receive data usage notifications specific to your Print content consumption, so you know when you are about to exhaust your print data allowance.
Print data allowance will be tracked independently from the other sources in your contract.
All Print historical data will require manual authorisation by your AM or a member of the Product Support team.
Can I export my data?
Yes, you can, but bear in mind that exporting NLA Print content will only give you the truncated version you see in the Results view. LexisNexis data can be exported as normal with no caveats.
And that’s it on Print data, and we are looking forward to seeing the value this new data source will bring to your media monitoring use case. As previously mentioned, we have more Print data coverage coming to Pulsar in Q2 and Q3, so watch this space!