Kyle
Over the last decade the 24 hour news cycle has quickly sped up to less than 15 minutes. Heck in the age of blogging, and specifically tech blogging, 15 minutes can be a luxury. That makes it extremely hard, or time consuming, to go out and vet expert sources. Most journalists, myself included, have a stable of 10-20 sources we can call on, on a regular basis, to vet out stories, but when a topic goes beyond our inner circle of sources journalists need experts.
This is a major problem in the online news and blogsphere. It’s the problem that Calgary startup TypeWhale aims to fix.
TypeWhale is a community where academic experts from top universities and journalists can collaborate on media queries. In the beta phase, TypeWhale is focusing on the education sector, as a “natural pool” of credible expert sources. Universities are identifying their expert sources and connecting them directly to the media via TypeWhale.
“TypeWhale is not about who has paid a PR rep to pitch their story, it’s about who is the most qualified to answer the media queries,” explains co-founder, Kylie Lakevold. “TypeWhale came from a passion for getting expert voices heard. This is what encouraged us to build a community where journalists and experts can collaborate live on the web.”
TypeWhale aims to take the media manipulators out of the equation. Lakevold came up with the idea when she came across a service that many journalists use where they can put a question out there and any “expert” can comment for a piece. The problem is that popular system has no way of vetting the “expert source”. You could get a response from someone who has no idea what they’re talking about. Or even worse, a PR hack on a mission to drive just one client.
We got a chance to interview the TypeWhale expert, Lakevold, directly. Check out the interview below.