It's a dream come true for me. A group of international developers working on a free, open-source tool designed to power a converged newsroom concept based on a centralised superdesk.

I have been setting up the workflows and defining the roles and responsibilities for these worldwide for 10 years as part of my media strategy work.

Now, the team at Sourcefabric is creating one set of tools, aptly named Superdesk, to deliver the entire publishing cycle for print and broadcast, from ingest to output. This post is inspired by my delight at not only seeing this take shape but in being invited to be part of the process.

Affordable tools to boost independent media

One of the biggest hurdles for small media organisations trying to set up newspapers in transition and post-conflict states is finding the money to buy a publishing system that can deliver to print and all digital platforms; the cost for those not tied to big business or political interests is prohibitive.

For years, a group of developers based in the Czech Republic have been creating free, open-source tools for professional journalists that takes care of the online side of the problem. They've also built a free radio scheduling and remote station management tool. These two Sourcefabric products are currently being used world-wide.

• Newscoop takes care of web and other electronic publishing – mobile and all digital platforms. Newscoop slideshow
• Airtime is a radio broadcast automation tool, currently consisting of a media library and a scheduler. Airtime slideshow

Now, the Sourcefabric group of journalists and developers is expanding, and they’re taking the Newscoop system to the next level so that all the tasks involved in producing a newspaper can be handled by the tools - and they won’t stop there: the next step is to create the tools for the entire broadcast TV cycle. This total newsroom production system for publishers and broadcasters is called Superdesk.

Superdesk - built by journalists for journalists

Part of the Sourcefabric team working on the Superdesk convergence tools

Superdesk is being built by those whose focus is to empower and enable free, independent media, and who also have backgrounds in working with some of the world's leading broadcasters and publishers.

And what makes these tools special is that they are designed, from start to finish, with the journalist and the media business in mind.

Every decision is tested against the needs of those gathering news, producing it and delivering it, and every function is there only if it make total business sense - in other words, built by journalists for journalists with the aim of helping the media business towards financial sustainability.

Ambitious deliverables

I have just spent two days with Sourcefabric in Prague on the development of the Superdesk tool set. It's built around a totally converged/integrated newsroom where the tools:

• Create the most efficient publication tool for print, broadcast and online journalism
• Incorporate the latest social networking platforms for news gathering and news dissemination
• Integrate a running order management (ROM) function for live TV production
• Make multi-platform authoring central to each task, from planning through production to delivery, so that content created once can be exploited on multiple devices without further reversioning and in a way that eliminates duplication
• Enable added-value cross-promotion between products from a central command-and-control interface to ensure that content is exploited for the maximum benefit of the end user and the business
• Set up a converged ad sales offering across all platforms and devices along with a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to measure effectiveness
• Pull all the above together in the most intuitive, efficient and effective interface available
• Release the product, free-of-charge, to all who need it
• And continue to support and develop the product, 24x7, 365 days a year.

A tall order and a massive task, but already the team at Sourcefabric are well down the road of delivering on all the above.

Once they do they could become the publication tool of choice for all who want to deliver a content offering across multiple devices without having to break the bank to do so.  And that could be a massive boost to the establishing of an alternative voice where independent media is absent.

You can follow Sourcefabric’s progress as it produces Superdesk on Twitter @sourcefabric and on Facebook on the Sourcefabric Facebook page.  Contact details for Sourcefabric

Note: Sourcefabric grew from the Campware suite of free, open-source tools that has been helping publishers and broadcasters worldwide for more than 10 years and which was produced by the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF). The Sourcefabric team represents 13 nationalities, Canadian, Colombian, Czech, Polish, German, English, Serbian, American, Israeli, Romanian, Guatemalan, Belarusian and Greek.

Declaration of interest: The author of this piece, David Brewer, is a journalist and media strategy consultant who delivers training and consultancy services worldwide with his company Media Ideas International Ltd. He also set up and runs Media Helping Media to offer free help and support to journalists in countries where training is not normally available. He has been working with many of the client’s served by Sourcefabric’s free, open-source solutions and has been invited to help define the new Superdesk tool. David tweets @helpingmedia.