Jill Manuel To Lead TopicPulse Partnership Efforts

Futuri Media on Wednesday named Jill Manuel director of TopicPulse partnership development.

Futuri said Manuel’s expertise with broadcast newsroom digital integration and history blending compelling journalism and engagement will provide a strategic resource for Futuri’s TopicPulse partners.

Manuel, a journalist for 20 years, joins Futuri after two years as assistant news director at Fox-owned WFLD in Chicago.

Prior to that, she was news director at E.W. Scripps-owned ABC affiliate WEWS. During her nearly six years at the station, WEWS won a George Foster Peabody Award for an investigation into increased cancer rates among veterans who served at McMurdo Naval Base in Antarctica. The station also won numerous Emmy Awards and two regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for “Building Better Neighborhoods,” a station-wide initiative aimed at strengthening Northeast Ohio communities. 

Jill also served as news director at the Tribune-owned 24-hour cable channel CLTV; executive producer at CBS-owned WBBM in Chicago; and senior producer for Fox News in New York and Washington, D.C. She was also a producer at Reuters Television in Washington.

TopicPulse is Futuri’s real-time social media measurement system for newsrooms and content producers that scans Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and 80,000 sources per second to provide real-time insights on what’s trending on local social media in a particular target demo.

“Jill Manuel brings incredible intellect and strategic expertise to the Futuri team. We are proud to welcome her to this very important role for TopicPulse, a system that has been growing at an incredible pace,” Todd Thomas, Futuri senior vice president of operations, said in a statement. “Hundreds of TV and radio stations depend on TopicPulse daily for insights on real-time social trends. Jill will help to connect the dots between those trends and strategic development of newscasts and broadcast content.”