As newsrooms face increasing financial pressure, many struggle to allocate resources to cover important stories. That increases the risk that large parts of the U.S. will become news deserts as local publications can no longer afford to cover local, national and global news in an adequate manner. Open Press Wire (OPW), a new non-profit organization, launches today to address this challenge by distributing high-quality, original content for free under a Creative Commons license to newsrooms across the country. The new wire service will empower news publications to cover events they could not afford to cover before, at no cost.
OPW is available with text-only news produced by a dedicated team of journalists and engineers. By leveraging software and AI, OPW can achieve broad coverage of local, national, and global events at a sustainable cost covered by donations alone. The resulting content — covering topics ranging from science and technology to health, politics, and sports — will be accessible through openpresswire.org and partnerships with other media outlets.
“We started OPW to support newsrooms because we believe that access to reliable information should not be limited by cost. We recognize the financial constraints that many newsrooms face today and want to ensure that essential news remains accessible to everyone,” said Genevieve du Lac, a Founding Director at Open Press Wire. “In a time when misinformation is rampant and access to accurate information is more important than ever, we need to remove the cost-barrier and democratize real-time access to factual information.”
OPW is available in English, and its content covers 53 countries where English is spoken by a significant portion of the population as either a first or a second language. OPW has established editorial standards steeped in accuracy, independence, breadth of coverage, and neutrality to define its coverage. Newsrooms can either use OPW’s articles in their publications as-is or create derivative content, provided the meaning of the article is not altered and attribution to OPW is included.
Otherweb, an AI-driven news startup and registered public benefit corporation, has donated its AI models, infrastructure, hosting, and processing capabilities to OPW as an in-kind donation, allowing OPW to hit the ground running with minimal funding.
“Dozens of publications across the country tell us that they can’t afford to cover important stories anymore. Their revenues are shrinking, but the cost of covering important news stories remains high,” said Alex Fink, CEO and Founder of Otherweb. “Supporting OPW with our AI technology will make a huge difference. It will allow smaller publications to cover everything worth covering and publish regularly without being limited by costs. As a public benefit company, this aligns perfectly with Otherweb’s mission.”
Learn more about Open Press Wire and its mission to democratize high-quality news content.
About Open Press Wire
Open Press Wire (OPW) is a non-profit news wire service dedicated to providing high-quality, original news content for free under a Creative Commons license. Launched to address the growing financial pressures on newsrooms, OPW aims to ensure that essential news remains accessible to everyone. Content is produced by a team of journalists and engineers leveraging software and AI, and is available for use and adaptation by newsrooms across the globe. For more information, visit openpresswire.org.
About Otherweb
Otherweb is a news-focused AI startup whose mission is to improve the quality of information people consume. Its consumer-facing news app has over 16m active readers (across web, mobile and white-label news widgets), and its AI tools for content creators are used by bloggers and journalists alike. As a public benefit corporation, Otherweb is dedicated to transparency, publishing its flagship models and datasets in a source-available format to let the public hold it accountable. Otherweb is committed to producing and distributing high-quality content without hidden biases, junk, or clickbait. Learn more at otherweb.com.
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