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A former web journalist at the now-defunct News of the World has released a tool he built to track breaking news headlines and releases of government data. News Sucker , built by a journalist for journalists, allows users to follow breaking news, plus headlines under topics such as "media" and "politics" and releases of government statistics.

Simon Freeman, now a freelance journalist and web consultant, told Journalism.co.uk: "In my previous role at the News of the World I found that carefully looking through I could usually pick up something that made a lead every week."

Freeman said the idea came about "because I know most reporters don't really have a handle on Google News or the various other personalised aggregators".

"This one is carefully tailored to meet our needs," he said.

Freeman added that he will be expanding News Sucker: "I'm adding feeds to it as I find them and hope it will become a hub for breaking news and headlines."

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Sarah Marshall
Sarah Marshall
Sarah Marshall is VP Audience Strategy at Condé Nast. She leads distribution and channel strategy globally. She is also the former technology editor for Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)

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