Vital Climate Emergency Message Hits the Air – with Help From latakoo

latakoo Connect gets the word out to local news outlets and communities;

Getting a story pitch in front of busy journalists has never been tougher.

So when a climate advocate and political leader in central Texas had an important message to share, but no effective way of sharing it, she decided to get creative.

Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea is no stranger to the world of journalism. A former award-winning reporter for NPR, she deeply understands the time constraints that reporters have, and the challenge of getting their attention.

Politicians and PR teams might consider sending an email they hope is opened, posting on social media and hoping journalists find it, or building and leveraging relationships with specific reporters – options that range from ineffective to time-consuming.

When she was given the opportunity to join world leaders at COP28, the United Nations Climate Change conference, in Dubai in her capacity as Board Chair for ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability USA, Commissioner Shea knew she wanted to keep journalists updated on what she was learning.

That’s why she teamed up with latakoo, with the goal of injecting her content directly into the newsroom systems.

latakoo is a software solution provider that is relied upon by hundreds of newsrooms every day. Journalists use latakoo to send and receive large video files, and to collaborate over those files effectively and efficiently.

Recently, latakoo introduced latakoo Connect. This new feature enables third party content providers to upload their videos and images to latakoo, where they can be accessed by news teams and brought into their newsroom computer systems with  the click of a button.

Commissioner Shea, a long-time climate change advocate who identified this year’s conference as especially significant due to the ongoing climate emergency, put her content on latakoo Connect in hopes of reaching more people.

“latakoo Connect was an excellent and easy way for me to upload content and get it in front of busy news teams,” said Commissioner Shea. “latakoo made the process effortless and instant. I got great coverage as a result.”

During the conference, Commissioner Shea heard from climate leaders including Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.

Unlike the news teams that rely on latakoo’s technology every day, Commissioner Shea did not have access to a professional video journalist or an expensive video camera. Instead, she filmed speeches, protests and her own thoughts using her cell phone. 

Using latakoo’s handy mobile app, Commissioner Shea uploaded her videos and images to the platform and placed them on Connect. It wasn’t long before her content caught the eye of KXAN, the Nexstar-owned NBC affiliate station in Austin, Texas.

On Wednesday December 6, KXAN featured Commissioner Shea in their 4 p.m. newscast. Chief meteorologist David Yeomans introduced the story by reporting on the importance of the conference, before tossing to a soundbite from Commissioner Shea that she had uploaded through latakoo Connect.

“Important stories that impact our local communities are often not getting covered because there aren’t enough journalists to produce these stories or local newsrooms don’t know it’s happening,” said latakoo President and Co-Founder Jade Kurian. “We’re giving people the opportunity to be connected to journalists. The journalists won’t always use all the content that’s in Connect, but having it within arm’s reach means there’s more likelihood some of these impactful community stories will get coverage.”

latakoo has built an experienced team consisting of seasoned journalists that are passionate about the news industry, and first-class engineers that have changed the game when it comes to video transfer and collaboration. A number of major broadcasters, such as the more than one hundred stations of Nexstar Media Group, use latakoo software every day, in addition to production groups and universities. News teams tell latakoo that its mission critical technology saves them significant time and money.