9531BM23R00110001 - Attachment 5 - Answers to Questions.pdf

AMENDMENT CONTROL NUMBER :

SUMMARY OF CHANGES :

9531BM23R00110001

Close Date is changed from 09-JUN-23 14:00:00 to 16-JUN-23 14:00:00.

The following attachments are added:

File Attachments:

Title Description File Name Entity Reference

Attachment 5 Answers to Questions Attachment 5-Answers to Questions.pdf

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Attachment 1 Dated 6/7/2023 Attachment 1 _ dated 6-7- 2023.pdf

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ATTACHMENT 5

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

SOLICITATION 9531BM23R0011

“MEDIA MANGEMENT AND

MONITORING SUPPORT SERVICES”

1. I would like to confirm if the project mentioned above are considered as a new requirement or is there an incumbent contract? If there are incumbent vendor(s), would you be able to provide the contract details (such as: Vendor Name, Contract Number, Award and end dates, total contract value)?

ANSWER: This is not a new requirement. The current contractor is Cision US, Inc.

The contract number is 9531BM18C0044. The period of performance is for one (1) base year and four (4) option years. The current option year expires on 8/30/2023.

The total contract value is $1,144,040.00.

2. Is this requirement currently performed by CISION US, INC (PR NEWSWIRE) and is set to expire on August 30, 2023?

ANSWER: Yes.

3. Contractor Name is currently looking at the solicitation/RFP 9531BM23R0011 for Media Management and Monitoring Support Services that has been posted on sam.gov and wondering if there is currently an incumbent contractor for this effort.

ANSWER: The current contractor is Cision US, Inc.

4. Regarding the delivery of the newsclips and the requirement that they be delivered “in the format and manner in which the service would deliver daily clips” should they be delivered by 7AM ET on the days they are produced?

5. Can NTSB confirm requirement for respondents to provide for all critical tools specified in the Scope of Work?

6. Would NTSB prefer or require tools that would link media contacts cited in the News Clips Service to the Media Contacts Management System?

ANSWER: That is not a requirement, but such a linkage could be a feature (depending on its usability) that would be attractive to the NTSB.

7. Is it important to NTSB for summaries contained in the News Clips Service to convey the importance of the article to readers, and to provide context for how the relevant subject matter was presented in the media?

ANSWER: Yes. The larger and media outlets (i.e., New York Times, NBC, AP, etc.)

with more reach should appear more prominently than smaller ones (Des Moines Register, local TV news, etc.)

8. The response requires that the contractor should have substantial experience in providing tools that capture social media engagement. Does NTSB require that the contractor provide tools that track social media engagement and to include certain metrics about social media engagement in the daily news clips?

ANSWER: That is not a requirement, but such a feature (depending on its usability) would be attractive to the NTSB.

9. When does the government anticipate making the award?

ANSWER: The NTSB estimates award on or around 7/24/2023.

10.Can the government accept Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) reports instead of Past Performance Questionnaires (PPQs)?

11. Will the government consider extending the proposals to June 15, 2023?

ANSWER: The proposal due date is extended to 4:00 p.m. EST 6/16/2023.

12. What is the contract value?

ANSWER: The total current contract value is $1,144,040.00.

13. Can the government share topics relevant to the Daily Briefing? How many topic categories are in this briefing? How many news stories are desired per topic?

ANSWER: The Daily Briefing should include, at a minimum, the following topic categories: NTSB Senior Leadership, Aviation Safety, Highway, RPH (Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials), Marine Safety and other relevant transportation safety related news. The number of news stories in each category may vary significantly from day to day as it will be driven by investigative activity in each mode of transportation. For those investigations and events with wide media coverage, the most prominent and wide-reaching media outlets should be featured in the story summaries, with only links provided to some of the other media outlets covering the issue/event.

14. Does the first paragraph of the article meet the government’s requirements of a summary, if not, please provide an example or specifications.

ANSWER: Copying and pasting the first paragraph of an article would not be sufficient for this requirement. The summary should summarize the most relevant material to the NTSB. Typically, a paragraph or two is adequate. And if NTSB leadership or an NTSB spokesperson is quoted, the quote(s) should appear in the summaries.

15. Can the government provide an example of a daily briefing so that prospective vendors can understand NTSB’s ideal look/feel?

ANSWER: We don’t have an ideal look and feel. We will evaluate all the submissions on their respective abilities to deliver the material in a well-organized and easy-to-use format developed by the Contractor.

16.Can the Government specify how many news releases it published in 2022 and in 2021?

ANSWER: All of the NTSB’s news releases going back to 2019 are available on the following page: Newsroom (ntsb.gov)

17.Text: In order to provide users with the access to the most news coverage, content behind paywalls should be summarized more extensively – or completely -- than those that are not behind paywalls.

Question: Recommend removing since this may cause a copyright infringement.

ANSWER: This will not be removed from the solicitation. If the Contractor copied a news article entirely, used its substantive portions verbatim, or formed a summary from extracted verbatim sentences, it would violate copyright laws. The Contractor would not violate copyright laws if it summarized a news article in its own words;

meaning, the Contractor stated the facts, history, or events in its own words without reproducing the original source or using the exact wording of the original source. This is because copyright protects only the expression of ideas and information, not ideas and information. To reduce the potential for copyright infringement, the Contractor may also link to the original source and use only short quotations.

In addition, the “fair use” provision of the U.S. Copyright Act allows unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. In short, it is considered “fair use” when you take a factual work, for example, a news article (as opposed to a creative work, like a song) and use a limited amount of its copyrighted material for a purpose that is noncommercial or nonprofit/educational. As a government agency tasked with investigating transportation accidents, the NTSB has a noncommercial, nonprofit purpose for obtaining summaries of transportation-related news and events.

18. Text: The contractor shall provide a newsfeed for use on the NTSB’s intranet site that is customizable to NTSB specifications and seamlessly integrates with the NTSB’s intranet site’s platform.

Question: Please provide the specifications of the website and how the newsfeed will need to be integrated.

ANSWER: We will not be requiring the newsfeed function and have removed it from the Statement of Work (SOW).

19. The contractor must provide international media in an English language format for the clips and must, at a minimum, be able to translate media in and out of 10 languages and monitor media in more than 50 countries.

Question: Please provide the languages and the countries. Also, how many foreign language stories are typically included in a week?

ANSWER: We will not be requiring the translation services and have removed it from the Statement of Work (SOW).

20. Can the Government provide a sample of the news clips product?

ANSWER: No. We will evaluate all of the submissions on their respective abilities to deliver the material in a well-organized and easy-to-use format developed by the

Contractor. We expect the Contractor to use their best business judgement to provide a news clip product that addresses the requirements of the solicitation.