By Sara Guaglione, Publishers Daily - After receiving requests from its publisher partners, digital video distribution and monetization platform SendtoNews (STN) developed a video player with a playlist dedicated to providing coronavirus coverage.

STN's publisher partners can use the video to complement its reporters' own coverage of the coronavirus.

“Especially now, with so much news to cover, editors and journalists don’t have time and resources to produce or hand-pick video for their articles,” STN CEO Matthew Watson told Publishers Daily.

SendtoNews also provides an AI-powered video player that reads a publisher's article and instantly embeds the most relevant video in its library into the article.

The platform can monetize the resulting views and share revenue with the publisher. 

STN's player features coronavirus-related video from over 100 sources, including Associated Press, Bloomberg, GeoBeats Health, Rolling Stone, Cheddar, the NBA, MLB, NFL and other major sports leagues.

The player is updated with new videos every 20 minutes.

SendtoNews’ video players are used by over 1,800 publishers, including New York Post, Chicago Tribune, SF Gate, Houston Chronicle, USA Today and companies like Hearst, Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy, according to the company.

“Our creating this video player and playlist for our publishers was a proactive measure,' Watson said. 'We wanted to ensure that every SendtoNews partner had the latest coronavirus video content, including press conferences (White House, WHO, etc.), financial analysis, travel updates and health tips to readers.

'We were also determined to ensure that every SendtoNews publishing partner was able to deliver this to their readers in the fastest and easiest way possible.'

To use the player, publishers paste the embed code where they want the coronavirus video coverage. The player then selects the most recent and relevant coronavirus-related content from STN’s library of more than 600,000 videos.

“In times of uncertainty, information is the first line of defence and publishers serve their community well by giving them the most up-to-date and accurate news available,” Watson stated.