UNIFEED – News from the United Nations – One World – One Feed – One Click

The first ever-video news service from the United Nations will be seven years-old in March.

UNifeed supplies news producers with what they need most, a raw news package, script and shotlist, as well as good pictures, transparency and objective information. The scripts are in English, but we will be expanding to other languages in the future.

UNifeed has had a relationship with Associated Press Television since the beginning, transmitting daily on their Global Video Wire. We also offer to Eurovision and Reuters. The introduction of the UNifeed website in 2008 created another tier of distribution, allowing broadcasters, universities, governments, publications and bloggers to access broadcast quality UN video news packages.

Breaking news is turned around immediately via a “UNifeed Flash’ on UNTV fiber lines that can be uplinked to anywhere in the world. The first ‘Flash’ was introduced in 2006, with the world exclusive from the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) on the arrest of former leader Charles Taylor.

And what has been UNifeed’s biggest story to date – the earthquake in Haiti. We had some of the first pictures to the world with the help of a very dedicated video unit at the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), where they were very much part of the story and at the same time showed great dedication and endurance. Material from the first package was played over 6,000 times in the first 24 hours by broadcasters the world over.

UN missions and agencies are in Haiti and everywhere else in the world when disaster strikes and they are there even after everyone has left, keeping the story alive. In a budget strapped news environment, UNifeed can provide pictures updating stories that have fallen off the radar.

For the future, we hope to continue to provide broadcasters with what they need. UNifeed is evolving with the technical revolution, currently offering PAL and NTSC and will be providing HD in the near future as renovations for a new digital broadcast centre in New York are currently underway.

If you haven’t visited the site already, please take a look at www.un.org/unifeed – to learn more about UNifeed, click on the link above.

Paula Harrington
Managing Editor, UNifeed