Facebook unveiled SIGNAL, a new tool to help journalists to gather social news.
News is sourced from both Facebook and the Facebook-owned Instagram platform. It is made for journalists using social media as a part of their reporting efforts.
The tool will be free for journalists.
“We came to know from journalists that they need a simple way to make Facebook a more important part in their newsgathering,” Andy Mitchell, director of media partnerships, posted on Facebook.
The tool is the newest effort of Facebook to interlink itself with the media publications and journalists who achieved success in attracting large number of viewers by social community.
“Search functionality makes it easy to surface content directly related to a topic or story they are tracking,” Mr. Mitchell stated.
Journalists can access the lists of public figures that are mentioned most on Facebook, including real-time conversations across authors, politicians, actors, sports teams, musicians, players, etc. more.
This is a first step to help journalists using Facebook and Instagram more effectively.