IPTC SpectrumNo 19 January 2005 IPTC - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR NEWS Subject Codes: 04003000 (computing and IT) 04010004 (news agency) 13022000(IT/computer sciences)
Media Type: photo
Scene: general view
Format: JPEG progressive
Location: Hong Kong
NewsCodes for the Complete Genre: specialreport Story IPTC Members
Nominating Members Agence France Presse - afp - (France) - http://www.afp.com ANSA (Italy) - http://www.ansa.it Associated Mediabase Limited (UK) - http://www.mediabase.co.uk Austria Presse Agentur - APA - (Austria) - http://www.apa.at BBC Monitoring (United Kingdom) - http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk Business Wire (USA) - http://www.businesswire.com Canada NewsWire Ltd (Canada) - http://www.newswire.ca Canadian Press (Canada) - http://www.cp.org CCNMatthews (Canada ) - http://www.ccnmatthews.com CINTEC (Hong Kong) - http://www.cintec.cuhk.edu.hk Deutsche Presse-Agentur - dpa - (Germany) - http://www.dpa.de Dow Jones & Company (USA) - http://www.dowjones.com European Alliance of News Agencies (Europe) - http://www.pressalliance.com Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association - NSK - (Japan) - http://www.pressnet.or.jp Keystone (Switzerland) - http://www.keystone.ch Kyodo News Services (Japan) - http://www.kyodo.co.jp Newspaper Association of America - NAA - (USA) - http://www.naa.org PA News Ltd (UK) - http://www.pa.press.net PR Newswire (UK) - http://www.prnewswire.co.uk Reuters Limited (UK) - http://www.reuters.com SDA/ATS (Switzerland) - http://www.sda-ats.ch The Associated Press - AP - (USA) - http://www.ap.org The New York Times Company (USA) - http://www.nytimes.com Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå - TT - (Sweden) - http://www.tt.se TMNEWS-APCOM (Italy) - http://www.apcom.it United Press International - UPI - (USA) - http://www.upi.com World Association of Newspapers - WAN - (International) - http://www.wan-press.org
Associate Members AFX News Ltd (UK) - http://www.afxnews.com Agence de Presse Belga (Belgium) - http://www.belga.be Agencia EFE (Spain ) - http://www.efe.es Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau - ANP - (The Netherlands) - http://www.anp.nl ANA - Athens News Agency (Greece) - http://www.ana.gr AS Norsk Telegrambyrå (Norway) - http://www.ntb.no Atex Media Command (Australia) - http://www.atex.com CCI Europe (Denmark) - http://www.ccieurope.com EAST Co., Ltd (Japan) - http://www.est.co.jp/english/index.html Eidos Media Srl (Italy) - http://www.eidosmedia.com eRoket.com (USA) - http://www.eroket.com Fingerpost Ltd (UK) - http://www.fingerpost.co.uk Harris and Baseview (USA) - http://www.harrisbaseview.com HINA (Croatia) - http://www.hina.hr IFRA (Germany) - http://www.ifra.com Inxight Software (USA) - http://www.inxight.com ITAR-TASS (Russia) - http://www.itar-tass.com La Reppublica (Italy) - http://www.repubblica.it Magyar Távirati Iroda Rt - MTI - (Hungary) - http://www.mti.hu NewsLink (UK) - http://www.newslink.co.uk Oy Suomen Tietotoimisto (Finland) - http://www.stt.fi RelaxNews (France) - http://www.relaxnews.com Ritzau Bureau I's (Denmark) - http://www.ritzau.dk RivCom (UK) - http://www.rivcom.com XML Team Solutions, Inc. (USA) - http://www.xmlteam.com International Press Telecommunications Contents Council
Chairman: John Iobst Organisation Honorary Treasurer: Getting All The Details Right 4 Henrik Stadler Management Committee 4 Vice Chairmen: Stéphane Guérillot; Geoffrey Haynes; IPTC 7901 replaced 6 Rudi Horvath; Peter Müller; Hitoshi Saito; Olympic Briefing 7 Klaus Sprick. Revolutionary News Delivery Managing Director: In China 8 Michael Steidl Chinese NewsML Community 9 Editor: Hugh Johnstone Standards Published by the Planning for the Future 10 International Press Standards Targets 10 Telecommunications Council Discussion Groups 13 Royal Albert House IPTC4XMP 13 Sheet Street Working Parties 2004 14 Windsor Berkshire SL4 1BE England NewsML Support Tel: +44(0)1753 705051 Laying Solid Foundations 15 Fax: +44(0)1753 831541 NewsML 1 Guidelines 15 E-mail: [email protected] NewsML 2 Requirements 16 [email protected]
Web Portal: www.iptc.org News Management Precise Processing 17 Cover NewsCodes Applying the Telling The Whole Story 18 right metadata can add a lot of IPTC NewsCodes 19 value to a news Urgency 20 item, and the IPTC Automatic Categorisation 20 NewsCodes are specially designed for this purpose. The main picture shows IPTC Managing Director News Industry Text Format Michael Steidl giving the Well Established 21 keynote presentation at the Second International Symposium on Chinese Specialised Content NewsML, held in Hong Kong. Designs For Structured Content 22 TV-Anytime 22
Public Relations Improving Intelligence 22 Presentations 24 Organisation
Main activities of IPTC are developing, publishing and promoting industry standards for the interchange of news. A Management Committee Getting All elected by the members is responsible for directing the aims and activities of the organisation. The Details At present the IPTC membership is drawn mainly from the major news agencies around the globe but it also has a Right strong representation from newspaper publishers, system vendors and New Media organisations.
sion of SportsML, completion of coding over time and between dif- the updated and extended ferent information providers. uring the past year efforts have NewsML 1 documentation, and ap- Dbeen concentrated on the new proval of ProgramGuideML as a Requirements family of standards. These are in- release candidate. With the new standards family the tended to help maintain IPTC’s po- first stage in the development pro- sition as the leading producer of NewsCodes cess was to establish the business standards for the news industry by A major step was the decision to and user requirements for improving understanding and sim- bring all of the IPTC metadata vo- NewsML 2, which were finalised plifying implementation. cabularies together under the com- during the summer, presented for From the outset it was clear that mon heading of NewsCodes - this consideration at the Autumn Meet- this was going to be a major effort, was reflected in a change of name ing, and approved. that would take at least two years for the News Metadata Working Second stage is the develop- to complete, and while some de- Party, which became the News- ment of a Conceptual Model and lays have been experienced con- Codes Working Party. The News- as this got under way it became siderable progress has been Codes have been developed to clear that many of the points that made. provide standard sets of topics had to be dealt with were generic to which can be applied to a range of the standards family as a whole. At Standards news objects to give consistent the same time work on other stan- Although attention has been fo- cussed on NewsML 2 - which is in- tended to be the core of the new standards family - this has not re- Management Committee stricted the development of exist- ing standards, where appropriate. The IPTC Management Committee is elected Activities in this area have included annually at the Annual General Meeting. From left to approval and release of a new ver- right: Vice-chairs Klaus Sprick (dpa), Stéphane Guérillot (AFP), and Hitoshi Saito (NSK); Chairman John Iobst (NAA); IPTC Managing Director Michael Steidl; Honorary Treasurer Henrik Stadler (TT); and Vice-Chairs Geoffrey Haynes (AP), Peter Müller (SDA/ATS) and Rudi Horvath (APA). Naoshi Hashimoto (above right) stood down as a Vice-Chair at the AGM, having represented NSK for some years.
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dards had also shown that there Increasing use is made of tele- have also been taken to make use was a need for a common, global, phone conferences to help with of Internet Relay Chat services (for treatment of core technical issues. this, and a dedicated service is members) on an experimental ba- now available - though the interna- sis. New structure tional make-up of the working To deal with this, the way the Stan- groups means that the timing may External standards dards Committee and its Working not be ideal for some delegates! Wherever possible use is made of Parties are organised was thor- external (non-IPTC) standards and oughly reviewed and proposals Involvement this is recognised in the Business generated for a new structure. This Throughout the development pro- Requirements for new standards. process started at the 2004 cess efforts are made to try and in- Efforts are also being made to co- Autumn Meeting, with the aim of in- volve as many potential users as operate with other standards bod- troducing the new working ar- possible and a continuing way of ies on standards development, rangements as soon as possible. doing this is by electronic discus- though this has not always proved Proposals were circulated elec- sion groups. practicable, mainly due to differing tronically, then modified in re- The NewsML group was set up to membership policies and the way sponse to comments and further help with initial development of delegates can be appointed. refined during conference calls. NewsML 1, with its scope later be- So far as possible contact with ing extended to the NewsML 2 - it other bodies - and feedback on Teleconference vote now has nearly six hundred mem- their activities - is maintained So that the (amended) proposals bers. A NITF group was also es- through IPTC members who are could be adopted and brought into tablished early on (now with over also members of the other organi- use it was decided to hold a formal four hundred members), along with sations, or who have particular in- meeting of the Standards Commit- a subsequent series of groups terests in the areas they deal with. tee by teleconference and vote on dealing with the Specialised Con- the proposal. This was the first tent standards (SportsML, Pro- IPTC4XMP time such an approach had been gramGuideML and EventsML). One area where cooperation has taken by the Standards Commit- During 2004 further discussion been particularly effective is in the tee. The meeting was held in early groups were established to cover IPTC4XMP project. This is a col- January 2005, and the proposals NewsCodes and the News Meta- laboration between IPTC, Adobe approved. data Framework, with the most re- Systems and the IDEAlliance to The new arrangements will be cent addition being a group to establish a way of using the well- brought into operation for he cover work on News Architecture established “IPTC Headers” with Spring 2005 Meeting. Details of which forms part of the new work- Adobe’s new Extensible Metadata these arrangements, and the think- ing structure. Addresses for these Platform (XMP). Similarly, co- ing behind them are given in the groups are given on page 13. operation between the Program- Standards Committee section on In addition to the public groups guideML group and the TV- pages 10 to 14. there is a members-only group for Anytime Forum resulted in re- discussion of internal IPTC mat- design of ProgramGuideML so it Working Groups ters, and a series of internal groups could use TV-Anytime metadata Although detailed consideration of dedicated to different aspects of as programme information within developments takes place during the new working structure. Steps ProgramGuideML. the main IPTC Meetings, much of the work is carried out by small working groups between the for- Increasing interest in the new family of standards is reflected in the mal meetings, and the success of number of delegates attending meetings. This picture shows another the process depends totally on the established feature of the meetings - the provision of Internet access willingness of individual delegates, which allows the easy interchange of information during sessions. and their organisations, to make Since the connection is normally available before and after working the necessary commitments. sessions delegates are also able to keepin regular touch with their organisations.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 5 Organisation
News Standards Summit sterdam during May 2005). This details). IPTC were co-sponsors of the first second summit will have a similar In addition to taking part in both News Standards Summit, (along structure to the first one with pres- the NEXPO and IFRA events, and with IDEAlliance and OASIS) entations giving an overview of being the keynote speaker at the which was held in December 2003 news-related standards, case his- Second Chinese NewsML Com- with the aim of examining both cur- tories, and an open discussion. munity conference in Hong Kong, rent and planned news and pub- IPTC Managing Director Michael lishing standards to help improve Promotion Steidl made presentations on the understanding of the standards Promoting IPTC as an organisa- standards at the European Alli- and try to promote convergence. tion and encouraging adoption of ance of News Agencies (EANA) The summit was well attended the standards is another major as- Seminar on “Technology and Busi- and provided a valuable inter- pect of the organisations’ work and ness Challenges” held in Buda- change of ideas. To build on this the News Standards Summit was pest, and at the World Congress success IPTC will co-sponsor a complemented by IPTC presenta- on News Agencies in Moscow. second News Standards Summit - tions on the standards and their to be held in conjunction with the applications held at NEXPO (in Web sites XTECH 2005 Conference (in Am- June 2004) and at the IFRA EXPO The re-designed family of IPTC in October (see page 24 for further Web sites has made it easier for users to find information about the individual standards, and about IPTC and its activities, and present an integrated public image. Devel- IPTC 7901 replaced opment of a database and web- based repository has made all the A significant problems with introducing new standards is IPTC Newscodes freely available what to do about the ones they replace. through the IPTC site Normally there will be an established user base which will expect (www.iptc.org), and a formal sys- to continue receiving a feed in the old format, and although some tem implemented for their mainte- users will convert to the new standard, others will not want (or be nance. able) to change. This was the problem faced by the Swedish news agency Members Only zone Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT) in 1996, when they adopted a The Web site includes a “Members form of NITF as their internal format. Many customers were still Only” zone providing services for using IPTC 7901 and a back-conversion process was used to registered members. These in- provide output in that format. A decision was taken to try and clude details of forthcoming meet- move customers away from 7901, but this was to prove a long and ings, a schedule of events, slow process. resources available for use by First steps were to concentrated on the advantages of the new members and internal discussion standard, and during the first two years about 25% of TT’s forums. customers decided to make the change, with a further 25% The Members Only zone is also converting in the period 1999 to 2002. However, this still left a being used to improve the distribu- substantial number of 7901 users, and in 2002 they were given tion and availability of working two years notice that the service would be shut down. documents. In the first instance This decision was influenced by the fact that the system being these are sent out as e-mail attach- used for back conversion to 7901 was becoming outdated, but TT ments, either individually or in a did not want to expend resources on replacing it. Current output is ZIP package. However, some e- mainly in TT’s version of the NITF, but there are also some XML mail systems strip the attachments feeds. It was hoped that the long notice period would allow for an (as a security measure) so the easy final transition, while the two year duration meant that documents may not always be re- customers would have two budget periods in which to make the ceived. change. To overcome this the documents There was also a realisation that the initial information process (or packages) are also made avail- (in 1996/97) had probably been targeted at the wrong level, that of able for download through the the IT departments at TT’s customers. In 2002 attention was Members-only zone. concentrated on the management and editorial levels. In addition Having worked its way through the information flow was accelerated, with reminders about the the approvals system the IPTC shut down after six months and then after a further three months. namespace is now in use, with the Another factor affecting efforts in 1996/97 was more political in intention being that all future docu- nature. At that time TT had more competition, so it was harder to ments will be issued with the ap- be forceful about imposing the change. propriate URN. Once customers had been informed that the 7901 feed would no longer be available, no real problems were encountered with the User survey final stage of conversion - though some compromises were In its work IPTC has to respond to needed to deal with a residual tail of a just a couple of users. the needs of its members and of the wider news industry and to help
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with this a survey was carried out signed to process NewsML. Agency Tidningarnas Tele- to try and establish the interests of Systems suppliers CCI Europe grambyrå (TT) when they decided the users of IPTC standards, their are now using NewsML to simplify to close down their service based business requirements, and sug- integrating systems and improve on the IPTC 7901 standard (see gestions for developments. automation. They use a standard panel opposite). Although the response was lim- NewsML structure with linked files ited the results generally tended to to handle different types of content. Membership confirm the - possibly unfounded - Where possible the NewsML is At the moment there are two types view that although NewsML, in par- supplied directly, otherwise is is of IPTC membership - nominating ticular, is seen a powerful standard converted to suit the customers re- and associate. it is difficult to implement. This per- quirements. Nominating Membership is open ception was one of the underlying These applications are in addi- to companies and organisations di- reasons behind the decision to cre- tion to the NewsML compatible rectly concerned with news collec- ate the integrated standards suits, systems that have already been tion, distribution and publishing. along with the need to ensure that implemented by many IPTC mem- This type of membership allows or- the IPTC standards make the best bers. In addition it appears that a ganisations to appoint one nomi- possible use of available technolo- significant number of non- nated Member and up to two gies and continue to meet develop- members are working on applica- delegates (if they wish organisa- ing needs. tions, though details are not gener- tions can pay more than one an- ally available (possibly for nual subscription, appointing a Implementation commercial reasons). Nominated Member and delegates It also has to be remembered that for each subscription). the adoption of new standards can Legacy systems Associate Membership is primar- involve a substantial investment At the same time maintaining leg- ily intended for vendors (of both for both information providers and acy systems can make significant software and equipment) but is their users, which may provide a demands on resources and a con- also open to news organisations barrier to rapid adoption. centrated efforts may be needed to and companies. Associate mem- During the past year the Athens persuade users to adopt more bers pay a reduced subscription, News Agency have implemented a modern systems - as shown by the and can appoint only one Associ- completely new editorial system (in experience of the Swedish news ate Member. time for the 2004 Olympics) and Appointed Members and dele- the use of IPTC standards was gates are entitled to attend all established as a requirements at Working Party and Committee the planning stage. Meetings (apart from meetings of Other recent developments in- the Management Committee) and clude installation by the Swiss have equal voting rights in the news agency SDA/ATS of a new Working Parties. However only “NewsML enabled” editorial sys- Nominated Members can vote in tem developed by their own staff, and a new editorial system in- stalled by the Danish news agency Ritzau'Is which is de-
Olympic Briefing
The special session at the IPTC Spring Meeting arranged by the Athens Olympics Organising Committee included a briefing from the Press Operations Manager (topright) which allowed delegates to check on the arrangements and discuss outstanding issues. Delegates were also able to see some of the facilities in the main press centre (top left). During the Olympics this large open space (bottom right) was occupied by US newspapers and news agencies.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 7 Organisation
the Committees. sider arrangements for the Presentations At the 2004 Annual General Summer Olympics. This event For the AGM CINTEC had ar- Meeting it was agreed to revise proved to be valuable for the dele- ranged an informative series of IPTC’s Articles of Association, gates, and it is hoped that a similar presentations and speakers that making it possible to create addi- briefing can be arranged for the provided an insight into some of tional membership classes. 2006 Olympic Winter Games the special aspects of the news in- which are being held in Turin (with dustry in both Hong Kong and Meetings the IPTC 2005 Autumn Meeting mainland China. Although increasing use is being being held in Milan). These included: An overview of made of electronic communica- The annual General Meeting the Xinhua News Agency from Mr tions, the regular, formal, meetings took place in Hong Kong at the end Xue Yongxing, Director and editor- still provide the core of activities. of May at the invitation of CINTEC in-Chief, Xinhua Asia-Pacific Re- They provide a forum for detailed (Centre for Information and Tech- gional Bureau; content aggrega- consideration of work in progress nology, The Chinese University of tion services provided by Wisers and formally approve standards for Hong Kong). The second Chinese Information Limited (who are de- release. The meetings also pro- NewsML Forum was held on the veloping a NewsML based sys- vide an opportunity for informal dis- day before the AGM and a number tem); the way 3G telephony is cussions outside of the main of delegates took the opportunity to being introduced to Hong Kong working sessions, which often participate in the forum. with a range of interactive and in- helps spark new ideas. Finally, the Autumn Meeting (in formation services; and an insight The Spring Meeting was held in Amsterdam during early October) (from Kevin Lau, of Mingpau.com) Athens during March, with the help enjoyed one of the largest atten- into some of the problems posed of the Athens News Agency (ANA). dances seen at an IPTC Meeting, to the publishing industry in Hong The meeting included an extra day with an extensive work programme Kong by the political atmosphere for meetings with the Athens Olym- concentrating on the new genera- and by difficulties with copyright pic Organising Committee to con- tion standards family. protection.
With the theme “Revolutionary News Delivery (including a Chinese language service). Ways of in Greater China - Outlook and Opportunities” checking NewsML documents were outlined by the Second International Symposium on Takahiro Fujiwara (East Co). Chinese NewsML was held in Hong Kong during May 2004. Delegates came from Hong XinghauML Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan, along with XinhuaML was developed by the Xinhua News a group of International representatives Agency and Mr Guowei Wu explained that the (mainly IPTC members). main aims were to unify the business operations, Keynote presentation was “The Road Ahead - to with use of XinhuaML now being compulsory for NewsML 2” by IPTC managing director Michael new developments. When development started it Steidl, which outlined the NewsML business case was believed that NewsML could not meet all of and technical background before moving on to the Xinghua requirements, but efforts are now explain the thinking behind the IPTC Roadmap being made to ensure compatibility so far as and NewsML 2. possible. Requirements for multimedia content NewsML applications management were considered by Professor This was complemented by presentations from Xiao’ou Chen (Peking University Founder R&D Laurent Le Meur (AFP) looking at the way AFP Center), with particular reference to the Founder use NewsML (they have around 300 customers Weblish system. and produce some 700 stories a day); and a description by Takeshi Moriguchi (NSK) and Theoretical aspects Hiroshi Shinotsuka (Kyodo News) of the way More theoretical aspects were also dealt with, NewsML adoption has been encouraged in Japan including an overview of the concept of news and a look at the use of NewsML by Kyodo News digitisation from Dr Ching-Chun Hsieh (Hsuan
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Chuang University, Taiwan), and a look at a general model of Chinese News content mark- up, with particular reference to the six basic elements of news (who, what, where, when, why and how) and the structure of news content, by Professor Ying-chun Hsieh (National Chengui University, Taiwan). and China, thought the advantages of the standard were generally well appreciated. TopicMaps Further details of the seminar, including copies The use of TopicMaps for news content of the presentations are available from management, and the possible application of http://cnewsml.org/sym2004/eng/programme.html Wf-XML binding to enable interoperability between different news processing systems in the NewsML context was considered by Dr S.M. Ju (National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan). An outline of the principles behind the use of XML for Data Rendering in Web-based Content Management System was provided by Dr Peng Xu (Tsinghua University). Business Aspects Synergy between online and off-line publications was a key factor in the business strategy of Mingpao.com, which combines a general news website with over a dozen specialist sites, according to Kevin Lau (Mingpao.com Limited). This had made it possible to provide the services with only a small increase in editorial staff. Content aggregators Wisers specialise on media from the Greater China area, offering a standard information service, along with custom systems for individual customers. Mr Ringo Lam (Wisers Information Limited ) explained that around 5000 items a day are processed, but limited availability of electronic files means that the operation is both time consuming and A large and attentive expensive. audience (above) provided an indication of the level of interest Adoption in NewsML in the Presentations were complemented by lively Greater China area. discussions with an important theme being current Keynote presentation NewsML applications, and the challenges posed was by Michael Steidl by the development of NewsML 2. At the moment (top) and the seminar it appears that both cultural and financial included displays of practical applications and consideration are holding back the adoption of products, such as the CIDAX toolkit (bottom). NewsML in Hong Kong
The Chinese NewsML tools. The CIDAX digital archive Community was system provides three main func- established by the Chinese University of Hong tions: Composing NewsML-based information Kong and is sponsored by the Innovation and packages; an on-line service for storing and sharing Technology Commission, Hong Kong SAR documents; and search, browse and export func- Government. tions. Its charter is to establish and promote a local In addition CIDAX OpenLib is a downloadable NewsML standard and supporting tools in order to Java library for creating news content with multilin- speed up the pace of e-business in Hong Kong gual and multimedia in NewsML format. As a further and enhance Hong Kong's commercial service the IPTC Subject Codes (V7) have been competitiveness in the world. translated into Chinese and are available for down- As well as promoting NewsML the Community load:. have undertaken the development of NewsML http://cnewsml.org/english/aboutcnewsml.html
IPTC Spectrum J anuary 2005 9 Standards Overall control of the activities of the IPTC Working Parties is undertaken by the Planning for Standards Committee, which has to give final approval to the standards, and other output, before they are released. the Future A major task is establishing requirements and a timetable for the new IPTC standards suite, and ensuring that the available resources are used to the best effect in new standard is to establish the compatible. the development process. Business Requirements (though in For example work on EventsML practice these extend to cover had identified a need for news many of the technical require- management, while the News ments as well). The same ap- Management Working Party had ork on the new IPTC stan- proach was adopted for the independently reached the conclu- Wdards family was started with EventsML Business Requirements sion that it might be appropriate to the aim of producing an integrated - approved at the AGM - and for the apply the concepts it had standards suite that would offer NewsML 2 Business Require- developed for NewsML to other easier implementation and pro- ments - which were formally ap- standards, such as EventsML. mote wider use, while making use proved at the Autumn 2004 of the latest technologies. Planned Meeting. Common approach core of the suite was NewsML 2, An initial effort to deal with this with the other standards being inte- Resources problem was by establishing two grated into the suite, while also be- As work on these standards moved new working groups to look at spe- ing suitable for stand-alone use. on to the next phase (developing cific areas - where the importance an Object Model and/or Schema of a common approach had al- Evolution production) and other develop- ready been identified. From the outset it was appreciated ments were planned - such as the The new generation standards will that the roadmap would have to production of XML Schema for be produced as XML Schemas evolve, and as the development SportsML and the NITF - it became (some established standards such process has proceeded the way increasingly clear that there were as the NITF will also become avail- the individual standards will be fit- many common requirements. able in XML Schema form). An ted together has become more de- It appeared that having individual XML Schema Style Task Force tailed. The overall concept was Working Parties (or Groups) con- has been established to investi- described as being that of a tower centrating on the separate stan- gate aspects of the move to XML block, with NewsML 2 providing dards could lead to a duplication of Schema including recommenda- the basic structure and services for efforts, and consequent waste of tions for a common style. the other standards, which occupy resources. There was also a risk individual floors. that the output from the individual Metadata First step in the production of a groups would not necessarily be The second initiative was con- cerned with the handling of meta- data. The mechanism used for applying TopicSets as controlled Standards Development Targets vocabularies used in NewsML 1 is seen as being complex and difficult * Become the dominant standards suite in the news to implement, although some us- domain by simplifying the understanding and ers appreciate the flexibility that it implementation of IPTC standards to encourage wider provides, and have made consid- adoption. erable investments in their Top- * Give IPTC standards a common base with a family icSets. One of the initial aims of the style. new standards project was to de- velop a common metadata struc- * Ensure that all IPTC standards share as many ture and a Working Group was set components as possible, and make use of common up to provide recommendation for functionalities. a News Metadata Framework. Further consideration during, * Shorten the overall development cycle. and after, the Autumn Meeting * Ease and improve the support and management of highlighted the fact that although standards. the individual Working Parties were making effective progress on
10 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 Standards
their standards, further steps were bring them into place for the Spring state the aims of the new IPTC needed to ensure that there was 2005 Meeting, and so ensure the standards programme - see the no duplication of effort, and that an minimum disruption of the continu- box on the previous page. integrated approach would deliver ing development process. the required common structure. Analysis Approach Starting point for the model was an Teleconference approval Basis of the approach was to first analysis of “news”, in a very broad An accelerated approach was establish a generic model for the sense, relating real world events adopted to finding the best solu- architecture behind the IPTC stan- and items to the news content de- tion. An initial exchange of ideas dards, and to identify series of rived from them, moving on to the produced a first set of proposals, common components to handle metadata describing the content, which were circulated to members specific functions - in effect to pro- and then to management and ex- before being considered in a tele- vide the structural elements for the change of the content. The result conference. The proposals were IPTC tower. of this analysis is represented then revised in the light of com- Individual standards will then be graphically in Diagram 1 below. ments and further discussions, and created by adapting the generic Next step was to establish the re-circulated before being model to suit the specific require- best way of organising IPTC work submitted to a formal teleconfer- ments, taking in the appropriate to meet these “real world” require- ence of the Standards Committee common components and com- ments, and the results are shown for approval. pleting the structure with special- in Diagram 2, on the next page. This approach was adopted as ised extensions particular to the Three main work areas were iden- the use of a teleconference to ap- scope of the standard. tified: prove the new arrangements As part of this process the oppor- Architecture domain dealing with meant that it would be possible to tunity was taken to formally re- the overall framework for stan- dards. This is a generic framework that provides the structure for the Diagram 1: Generic model for news individual standards. Content domain dealing with spe- There are five layers representing increasing levels of abstraction. In this cific standards with clearly identi- model news is considered in a very broad sense to cover both the fied types of content. traditional journalistic news material (including text stories, photos, Specialised groups domain to audio and video) and structured information about events, sports, take care of the remaining areas market data and television programs. The base level represents real world events and items, with the next three layers falling within the general area of IPTC inter- est. Within this area the scope of IPTC standards is indicated by the blue outline.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 11 Standards
not covered by the previous two that the approach will be object- agement Working Party - including domains. orientated. Within the Working the development of processing To carry out this work there will Party are a series of Working rules - but its scope is extended to be a new structure with a revised Groups dealing with different as- all of the new standards. Workload set of Working Parties (with a se- pects of the architecture: for this group will also be high ini- ries of subsidiary Working Groups) News Structure Working Group tially, and it seems probable that a reporting to the Standards Com- dealing with an abstract news continued effort will be needed to mittee. model that can be customised to maintain the structure and support meet the needs of individual stan- its use. News Architecture Working dards. Initial workload for this Common Components Working Party group will be high as the specifica- Group has to establish if compo- With overall responsibility for all tion is developed, but may be less nents are common to more than aspects of the common architec- intense, at least for the life of the one standard, and then develop ture - the core of the tower - for the first generation of the new stan- and maintain them in a common new-generation IPTC standards. dards suite. components library. Typical exam- This takes in most of the work of News Management Working ples might be a “Person- the previous NewsML Support Group has an overall task similar component” or a “Location- Working Party, and it is anticipated to that of the previous News Man- component”. Suggestions for common com- ponents will be raised by the News Diagram 2: Structure of IPTC standards work Content Groups, but if a compo- nent only appears to have limited Activities of the IPTC Working Parties have been restructured application (typically to a single according to the generic model of news. standard) it will be dealt with by the As the name suggests the News Architecture Working Party is Working Group responsible for the responsible for the underlying architecture, with the News Structure, standard. Development of com- News Management and Common Components Working groups dealing with specific aspects of the work. Specific component s required by individual standards, and markup specific to content handled by the standards, are dealt with by the relevant Working Groups within the Speciaised Content Working Party. Note that workon the NITF, and the News- Codes and support for NewsML 1 is not shown in this dia- gram as they do not form part of the new standards suite.
12 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 Standards
mon components will be an ongo- ing effort. Standards Architecture News Metadata Working Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iptc-architecture will deal with the expression, appli- NewsMetadata Framework cation and management of both http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iptc-metadata controlled and uncontrolled vo- NewsCodes cabularies used in any of the IPTC http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newscodes Standards. Initial workload is seen NewsML1 and NewsML2 as being high but reducing once http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newsml the mechanisms are established. News Industry Text Format Note that the metadata vocabular- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nitf ies remain the responsibility of the SportsML NewsCodes Working Party. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportsml EventsML http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eventsml Groups for IPTC News Content Working Public Discussion ProgramGuideML Party http://groups.yahoo.com/group/programguideml Takes over the functions of the Standards Development Specialised Content Working Party with overall responsibility for spe- cific standards dealing with struc- standard Components. mation. turted content - this will include a SportsML Working Group takes WeatherML Working Group is in- new NewsML Working Group care of maintenance, development vestigating a standard method of which has a mission to cover all and promotion of the global XML describing weather information. types of ”General news content” - standard for sports data inter- In addition there are a set of in effect a content standard for free change. working parties that are not directly format journalistic information. EventsML Working Group is part of the new standards effort: In addition the following groups working on a standard for the ex- will continue with the work already change of information on events NewsCodes Working Party under way, taking steps to ensure publishing, planning and coverage. Will continue with its work develop- that developments comply with the ProgramGuideML Working ing standard sets of metadata for recommendations of the News Group looks after the XML stan- news (the NewsCodes) , which can Structure Working Party and dard for the interchange of Radio be used with any of the IPTC Stan- making appropriate use of the and Television programme infor- dards - and outside them.
IPTC4XMP in the XMP metadata framework. The main aims were to permit a smooth transfer of metadata currently stored as “IPTC Headers” to The “IPTC headers” are well known as feature a new IPTC metadata scheme, and to make of Adobe Photoshop and other imaging provision for the extended metadata that is now software, allowing users to input and store a available. range of information about the image - such as the name of the photographer, date, the Schema caption and the location. These headers were A XMP Schema (IPTC Core V1.0) has been taken from an early version of the IIM produced - and approved for release as an IPTC (Information Interchange Model) and a much standard - covering most of the original “IPTC wider range of metadata is now available. Header” information with a number of additions. Specific provision is made for the IPTC Subject Embedded metadata NewsCodes, and Scene NewsCodes. Adobe have developed the Extensible Metadata User interface panels to simplify use of the IPTC Platform (XMP) as a general purpose way of Core with Adobe software packages and user embedding XML metadata in a file. It is an open documentation will be made available, and a standard using RDF (Resource Description reference mapping between the “IPTC Headers”, Framework) available for use by application the IIM Datasets and the relevant XMP properties developers, as well as being widely integrated has been produced. into the Adobe product range. DISC (Digital Image Submission Criteria) is a Following initial discussions between IPTC and IDEAlliance Working Group developing standards Adobe Inc (and their partners) a collaborative for digital images that will be submitted to maga- effort, which also included the IDEAlliance, was zines for publication. There is a close relationship established with the aim of producing a set of between the IPTC Core and the DISC metadata metadata elements (mainly news related) for use fields - see http://www.disc-info.org/.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 13 Standards
maintenance and promotion of ties and Groups and encourage News Industry Text Format NewsML 1. comment and participation from Working Party outside IPTC there is a set of public Continues in its present form to Finally the XML Schema Style electronic discussion groups - ad- maintain and develop the NITF and Task Force is investigating issues dresses are given in the panel on promote its use. related to the migration of IPTC the previous page. These public standards to XML Schema, includ- groups are complemented by a fur- NewsML 1 Maintenance ing recommendations for a com- ther set of groups for discussions Working Party mon XML Schema style. between IPTC members working Takes on the responsibility for To support these Working Par- in individual areas. Working Parties 2004
During 2004 the Working Parties (and their missions) were essentially the ones established when NewsML was introduced. Scope of the standards represented by these groups are considered on the following pages. Efforts in these areas will continue under the revised working arrangements, with increased emphasis on harmonisation and cooperation. Overall control of the Working Parties, and the allocation of work, is the responsibility of the Standards Committee under the Chair Stéphane Guérillot (AFP).
NewsML Working Party NewsML as a multimedia news standard, including measures to promote the adoption of NewsML 1 and development of NewsML 2. Chair: Laurent Le Meur (AFP) Vice-Chair: Stuart Myles (Dow Jones)
Specialised Content Working Party Dedicated standards for handling structured news content in specific interest areas. Chair : Geoffrey Haynes (AP) Vice-Chair Henrik Stadler (TT)
News Management Working Party Processing of news items throughout their life cycle. Chair: Stuart Myles (Dow Jones)
NewsCodes Working Party Metadata vocabularies for use with IPTC standards. Chair: John Minting (UPI) Vice-Chair: Honor Craig-Bennet (PA)
News Industry Text Format Working Party Maintenance, development and promotion of the News Industry Text Format. Chair: Alan Karben (XML Team) Vice-Chair: Christian Ratenburg (CCI Europe)
In addition to the above Working Parties there was a Standards Steering Committee made up of the Chairs of the individual working parties, together with Working Groups looking at requirements for a Common Metadata Structure and an XML Schema Style Task Force.
14 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 NewsML Support Designed to provide a structural framework for the global exchange of multimedia news, NewsML is intended for use at all stages of the news Laying Solid lifecycle - production, delivery and archiving. The NewsML Support Working Party is Foundations responsible for both development and application. Launched in October 2000, NewsML was well received and has proved to be a stable standard. Work is now underway on a new-generation NewsML in restricting the adoption of more advanced features of 2 to meet the evolving NewsML 1, tending to reinforce the NewsML is provided in the “Expert needs of the news belief that the standard was com- zone” on the NewsML web site. industry. plex and difficult to implement. To This zone contains papers pro- help overcome this the documen- vided by implementers on such tation was completely reviewed subjects as the handling of multilin- and rewritten, drawing on the ex- gual news and an explanation of ork on NewsML took two perience of a group of members the NewsML TopicSet mechanism. Wmain directions during 2004 - with in-depth knowledge of the As a further service to imple- on one hand helping to make standard and its implementation. menters a series of sample NewsML 1 more generally useful, A summary of the guidelines NewsML instances and sample and on the other laying the founda- content is given in the panel below, NewsML feeds are available. tions for the new-generation and they are available for free Work on the NewsML 1 docu- NewsML 2. download from the NewsML web mentation revealed a number of ar- It was believed that problems site (www.newsml.org). eas where improvements would be with the original NewsML docu- In addition to the guidelines more possible, but it was decided that mentation were a significant factor specific information on some of the the best use of resources would be NewsML 1 Guidelines Introduction Management level – management Overall view of the NewsML structure, and of the strategies documentation. Three news management strategies for the exchange of NewsItems: a basic pattern modelled from the legacy Content layer – ContentItem workflow between a provider and many consumers; a write through pattern that manages news at the Core level of the NewsML model, the ContentItem NewsItem level, and an expert pattern that manages provides a uniform interface to content irrespective of news with a finer granularity (usually the the media type of that content. NewsComponent level). Structure level – NewsComponent Exchange level - NewsML envelope The NewsComponent acts as a flexible container Structure of NewsML envelopes in a news workflow and for news objects (for example a picture with its the use of properties associated with the exchange and caption, or several text parts in different syndication of news. languages) and can include lists of equivalent and complementary objects. Controlled vocabularies for NewsML Concept of controlled vocabulary in NewsML and how Metadata about content – controlled values are handled for validation or display NewsComponent purposes. Creation and use of TopicSets (lists of Different classes of metadata administrative, Topics). descriptive and relative to rights management - held by a NewsComponent. Details of the metadata terms Extension mechanisms defined by the IPTC for news handling. Structure and Extension of existing TopicSets and creation of new use of NewsLines. TopicSets. New Property elements in existing metadata sets and additional Metadata sets. Management level – NewsItem Prime unit of news management in NewsML is the Appendix NewsItem. Information on identification and storage of Guidelines about XML encoding, date formats, the NewsItems, and the management properties. NewsML namespace URI, and validation.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 15 NewsML Support
to freeze the standard in its present ments made by members and within the NewsML standards and state - and concentrate efforts on other users (including an extensive help highlight how the standard is the new-generation NewsML 2. brainstorming session at the start developing, there is a cross- One factor behind this decision is of the process); results from the reference between the original re- the fact the NewsML 1 has flexible IPTC News Standards Survey; quirements for NewsML 1 and the extension mechanisms and it is points raised at the News Stan- updated NewsML 2 requirements. hoped that existing users will be dards Summit; and extensive feed- able to employ these to meet their back from the discussion groups. Conceptual Model requirements, without needing ma- An overview of the requirements is Once the Business Requirements jor changes to the standard itself. shown below. had been established, attention turned to the construction of a Con- Business Requirements Use cases ceptual Model for the standard, First stage of the work on NewsML To complement the requirements a which builds on the Business re- 2 was to establish the Business number of use cases have been quirements in a more formal man- Requirements (which also take in considered, dealing with specific ner. The Conceptual Model uses many of the technical require- applications including the creation an integrated set of ideas and con- ments). These are high level re- of a multimedia package for web cepts to provide a description of quirements and detail the scope of applications; consolidation of leg- how the system will appear and be- the standard, providing the base acy formats with a common meta- have, and a key element in the ap- the standard will be built on. This data set; and push distribution for a proach has been to simplify the process drew on the original news service. syntax as much as possible (com- NewsML 1 requirements; com- In addition, to maintain continuity pared to NewsML 1) while main- NewsML 2 Key Requirements
High level Metadata classes Forward and backward News life cycle Characteristics compatibility Authoring Administrative and Conceptual model Storage descriptive backkward Exchange metadata compatibility Syndication Rights metadata Syntactic backward User agents Management metadata compatibility XML based Links from news-items Application forward Presentation to other resources compatibility IPTC legacy metadata Bi-directional NewsML model transformation Conceptual model Composition Processing Model Alternative renditions Compatibility with other Construction Groups of news-items standards Details Support for and Interoperability Digital signature conformance with No interpretation Signed news-item non-IPTC standards One way Signed content Conformance with Patterns other IPTC standards Error handling Management Application interfaces Identification Default behaviour Universality Revision Internationalisation News development Accessibility Content representation Metadata update Media-independence Management notice Inclusion and Usability Simplicity reference Labels Encoding Conciseness Labels support Style & ease of use IPTC legacy labels Specifications Metadata support Topic references in User Manuals and On- News-related labels line References metadata Hyperlink in labels Minimal mandatory Line breaks in labels Standard maintenance metadata Variants of Labels Metadata extensibility Ongoing standard Meta-metadata maintenance Exchange Standard support Types of metadata Exchange envelope values Exchange properties
16 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 NewsML Support
taining the power and flexibility of mark-up in labels, with support dled by a processing system. The inherent in the standard. for specific languages, while oth- Processing Model has been under The aim of achieving simplicity ers have pointed out that this can consideration by the News Man- while maintaining power and flexi- lead to significant problems for agement Working Party and to- bility has resulted in a lot of work, processing systems. Over a five gether the two models will provide but is seen as a major feature of month period there were more than a clear image of what the final stan- the new standard. A good example 160 messages on the subject - in dard has to do, and how it should of the efforts being made concerns addition to both private and more do it. The intention is to use an ex- the treatment of labels - these are general discussions. ternal consultant to produce the information common to all media, The conceptual model is comple- XML Schema for the standard, so it such as a headline, caption or de- mented by a Processing Model can be brought forward for ap- scription. Some potential users which describes how NewsML ob- proval, and adoption, as soon as would like to use a moderate level jects will be represented and han- possible.
News Management
News is constantly changing and efficient processing is a key requirement of any system. Precise The News Management Working Party is responsible for the development of Processing processing models for NewsML and other standards.
stablishing the best way to use from NewsML 2 documents, and terfaces applicable to the handing Ethe management features in- also describe how to build in- of news and based on the concep- corporated in NewsML resulted in stances from NewsML 1 docu- tual model. a formal guide which now forms ments. • Default behaviour should be part of the general the NewsML 1 • Be specific in exhaustive detail specified to allow sensible proc- guidelines. covering every aspect of NewsML essing when optional elements During the past year attention that has model - or logical - signifi- (such as metadata) are not present has been concentrated on the gen- cance. or when unknown content is found eral area of developing the proc- • Provide developers of NewsML and there is no specific application essing model for NewsML, with the processors with all the information processor. main goals being to simplify imple- they need to ensure that their im- mentation; help promote adoption plementations are fully interoper- Reconciliation by ensuring compatibility between able with other implementations. With the requirements established applications; allow profiles (making • The NewsML processing model the next stage is to reconcile the use of different NewsML features) should be written to be easily and goals for a processing model and and allow for the establishment of fully comprehensible to implement- the NewsML 2 requirements. This different levels of conformance. ers with as little scope for interpre- will be done by creating a data ob- tation as possible, and should be ject model and then defining the Applied effort written so that there is only one processing for, and behaviour as- Detailed requirements for the way to obtain one specific result. sociated with, each NewsML ob- Processing Model have been es- • Define standard structural pat- ject. tablished (they form part of the terns for representing and handling Comparing the results to the NewsML Business Requirements) most normal types of news-items. processing requirements will indi- and provide a good indication of All NewsML processors must han- cate where adjustments are the efforts being taken to make dle these standard patterns. needed to the object model, lead- NewsML 2 easy to understand and • Error situations must be de- ing to refinements of the process- implement. A summary of the re- scribed with recommended ways ing model, with the process then quirements is given below: of handling them. being repeated until the goals have • Describe how to build instances • Define standard application in- been met.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 17 NewsCodes
Standard Metadata Vocabularies allow consistent coding of information produced at different times and Telling the coming from different providers. Development and support of vocabularies for news applications is undertaken Whole Story by the NewsCodes Working Party. Although primarily intended for news use some of the IPTC NewsCodes - particularly NewsML TopicSets. As with other for the inclusion during the process the Subject Codes - are IPTC products the NewsCodes are below. finding more general available for free use. 2) The term should relate to gen- application. All of the TopicSets are now pre- eral news, not to a specific disci- sented in a common format (see pline and have a universal below) with the information pro- meaning. The exception is the term vided consisting of the TopicType that has come into global usage al- n many ways metadata is the key (the set of NewsCodes), a Formal- though its origin may be specific to Ito efficient distribution, use, stor- Name, a Name, and in most cases a local discipline. age and reuse of news. An exten- a brief explanation. Since the 3) The term is unique in its defini- sive set of controlled vocabularies NewsCodes are intended for inter- tion and not a synonym of an exist- for application to news objects - in- national use it is anticipated that ing term. cluding text, images, audio and the Name and explanation will be 4) Each new term must be accom- video - has been developed by translated into the language re- panied by a precise explanation, in IPTC. The use of such standard quired by the user. British English, within the intended values gives consistency between However, the Formal Name is context of its use. different news providers and over not translated, providing a key be- 5) All requests from non-IPTC time. tween applications in different lan- members must be sponsored by a These topic sets are collectively guages. In some cases - such as IPTC member in good standing. known as the IPTC NewsCodes, the Subject Codes (and Subject 6) Each new term requested with a total of 28 currently being Qualifiers) - the Formal Name should be in lower case, in the sin- available to cover specific applica- takes the form of a numeric code gular unless it is a plural noun and tions, typically as metadata ele- and this practice was also adopted in British English. ments in news exchange formats - for the most recent “Scene” News- 7) Requests shall be made using see panel opposite. Codes. the form found at: http://www.iptc.org/IPTC Wide application Updated /Metadata/documentation/ Although the initial development of Development of the NewsCodes is IPTC-TOSsubmission.xls . the NewsCodes was directed to a continuing process, and a com- Although proposals have to be their use with IPTC standards mon set of criteria have been es- made by IPTC members, non- (such as the IIM and the XML- tablished for additions and updates members may make an informal based NewsML), they can be read- to all of the NewsCode TopicSets. proposal and see if any member is ily used with other XML schemas, These criteria are: willing to give support and sponsor or on their own, completely outside 1) A IPTC member - or an organi- the proposal. XML. The code sets can be viewed sation sponsored by this member - Updated versions of the News- on the IPTC web site and are avail- must need to use the terms and Codes are released following for- able for download in the form of gain support from other members mal approval by the Standards
The IPTC NewsCodes can be viewed on the IPTC web site and downloaded as NewsML TopicSets. In this case - the (British) English version of the ColorSpace NewsCodes - the identifying Formal Name is the same as the Name. History information shows when the NewsCodes were updated. The current Version 3 ofthis set was released in April following the addition (at the IPTC 2004 Spring Meeting) ofa number ofcolorspaces used by the Japanese printing industry
18 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 NewsCodes
Committee and published on the IPTC web site. Update alerts of the release of new, or updated News- Codes are available as a NewsML IPTC NewsCodes headline feed or as a RSS feed. As with other IPTC standards there is an on-line discussion forum for Audiocoders software audio coders in general use by the news NewsCodes - http://groups.ya- industry. hoo.com/group/newscodes. Characteristics property names for physical characteristics of content ( , , ). Subject Reference System font ICC Profile sample rate Previously one group of News- Colorspace vocabulary to define colour space (RGB, YUV , Codes - originally developed for CMY). use with the IIM - was known as the Confidence degree of certainty that assigned data are correct. Subject Reference System - these were the Subject Codes, Sub- Encoding encoding schemes for data transformation (base64). jectQualifiers, NewsItem type, Format technical format of content like (JPG, MP3, NITF, PDF). Genre, and Media type. Detailed Genre journalistic or intellectual characteristic of a news object - guidelines on the use of this group not specifically its content ( . of NewsCodes are available for advice, background, feature) download from the NewsCodes How Present way in which a topic occurs in the content of a web site (www.newscodes.org). news object. Most widely used of the News- Importance relative significance of the metadata applied to a Codes are the Subject Codes, news object. which provide a means of describ- ing editorial content, with three lev- Labeltype type of a label attached to a news object. (labels are els giving increasing detail. metadata representing human readable text). Increasing use of the Subject Location type of location where events being described occur Codes has resulted in a significant (city, country, world area). number of requests for additional Media Type general description of the media type (text, photo). terms, which have to be properly considered and approved. MIME Type IANA registered MIME types for specific media identification. Fast track Newsitem Type type of content carried by a news item (advisory, Proposals for additions at the third data, news). - Subject Detail - level of the Sub- ject Codes are handled by a “fast- Notation technical notation of content (JPEG, NITF, XML). track” jury (appointed by the Stan- Of Interest To target audience for a news item (see also dards committee and with three to “Relevance” below). five members who have a good Priority relative importance of a news item for distribution. knowledge of the Subject Codes). Under this process submissions Property NewsML specific - the type of a NewsML Property are initially submitted to the IPTC element. Managing Director (using the form Provider unique ID assigned by the IPTC to a company, on the NewsCodes section of the publication or service provider. IPTC Web site) and circulated to Relevance extent in which a news object is considered relevant members for them to make com- to the target audience specified by “OfInterestTo”. ments or raise objections. After 21 days the requests are considered Role role of an individual news object within a package of several by the jury. Any comments and ob- news objects (Main, Supporting,or“Caption). jections are considered and the Scene description of the content (headshot, group, action). proposals will normally be agreed if they conform to the established cri- Status NewsML specific - current usability of a news item. teria for inclusion, and are consid- Subject Code three level taxonomy for describing editorial ered to belong to the proposed content. (second level) Subject Matter Subject Qualifier specific context for e.g. a sports-related subject heading. code. Proper consideration of these re- quests can be time consuming and Topic Type NewsML specific: The kind of thing that the individual to reduce the load on the fast-track thing represented by the topic can be characterised as. jury limitations have been imposed Urgency relative importance of a news object for editorial on the number of submissions in consideration. any given proposal. No more than Videocoder software based videocoders in use by the news 20 Subject Detail codes can be industry. proposed at a time, and any given
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 19 NewsCodes
party can only make one submis- 2004 a major effort was made to sion a week. ensure that all entries had appro- Urgency Changes to the second - Subject priate explanations. Overall this in- Matter - level have to be discussed volved adding (or occasionally One of the oldest set of and approved during a session of modifying) some 500 terms. NewsCodes is (editorial) the NewsCodes Working Party. urgency. The seventeen first level Subjects Extensions This was included in IPTC are unlikely to be changed or As increasing use is made of the 7901 as “Priority of Story” added to - they were established Subject Codes, users are finding and defined as one numeral after detailed consideration to pro- areas where the available codes on a scale ranging from 1 for vide a balance between depth of do not meet their requirements. the most urgent, 4 for news interest and practicality of Where possible the preferred ap- normal to 6 for the least application. proach is to meet needs within the urgent. Subject Codes themselves, main- In the IIM it becomes Explanations taining compatibility across the “Urgency” and is specified Proposals for NewsCodes have to widest possible range of users. as being non-repeatable and include explanations of the terms, If this is not considered appropri- consisting of a numeric but this was not the case when the ate the system makes provision for character with '1' the most NewsCodes were originally pro- “private” extensions to the Subject urgent, '5' normal and '8' the duced. This meant that here were Codes - details on how this can be least-urgent copy, while a significant number of terms with- done in the IIM are included in the numerals “9“ and “0" were out explanations, with the risk that Subject Codes guidelines, while reserved for future use. they might be incorrectly applied. the NewsML TopicSet mechanism The same values appear The problem was most severe makes it straightforwards for users in the NITF and were carried with the Subject Codes, and during to introduce their own TopicSets over to the TopicSet for NewsML, though in this case the meaning for “9" is stated of terms that it as being defined by the Automatic categorisation at UPI considers less user. relevant (in the Obtaining full benefits from use of the Subject yellow area). Code system requires consistent application The editor can then check or uncheck any of the of over a thousand codes, which is a difficult recommended terms, or select other terms from task for a busy editor. Because of this auto- the white area of the screen - which contains all matic categorisation is finding increasing ap- the Subject Codes being used by UPI. plication. This particular story had been previously UPI are using a nStein categorisation to apply processed by another editor, who had selected a comprehensive coding - under editorial control, number of additional terms, and these shown in and here are the opening paragraphs from a UPI the pink area. Again these terms can be accepted news report: or removed as considered appropriate. BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 25 (UPI) - The At the time the screen image was saved the confrontation between Colombia and Venezuela nStein taxonomy was still using V10 of the Subject on account of FARC's foreign relations executive Codes for categorisation, but later terms are Rodrigo Granda's arrest can become the most shown in blue on the display and the editor can important foundation for both governments to select them if appropriate. define parameters of a common front against terrorism. However, Presidents Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chavez continue to posture, issuing declarations and official notices. The barrage of statements revolves around two issues, which, although important, block progress on resolving the dispute: the alleged violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and Colombia's determination to rid itself of terrorism. When the editor submits the story to the categorisation engine it comes up with a selection of what it thinks are relevant terms (in the green area of the display shown here) along with a further selection
20 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 NewsCodes
containing the values they require. that the Subject Codes would be members -have produced transla- The same approach can be used translated into different languages tions, some of which are freely to meet requirements for additional for use, with the system being de- available on the IPTC web site, NewsCodes - either to comple- signed to be language independ- with an emphasis on languages ment existing sets or to meet fresh ent. The reference version is that are used in more than one needs. maintained in (British) English but country - such as French, German From the outset it was envisaged individual members - and groups of and Spanish.
News Industry Text Format
The News Industry Text Format (NITF) is a XML based standard designed to handle the structure and content of news Well articles, with specific identification of a large number of news characteristics. Maintenance and Established development of the standard is the Initially the NITF was based on An extended - and continuing - responsibility of the NITF SGML, but was converted to XML development programme has pro- Working Party. during 1998 (and formally released duced a mature standard and this in 1999). Increasing use of the is reflected in the fact that relatively standard by the news industry re- few requests for modifications s the name suggests the NITF sulted in proposals for a series of have been received since release Ais essentially intended for news improvements which were dealt of NITF V3.2. text, providing a way of giving with by the NITF Working Party. A It is expected that further minor structure to individual news arti- series of revised versions of this changes will be made to meet spe- cles, and supporting the identifica- standards were released, retaining cific user needs, and these should tion and description of a large backwards compatibility until V2.5. retain backwards compatibility. number of news characteristics. However, more extensive However, a major revision appears This is achieved by applying “en- changes were considered neces- unlikely. Steps are being taken to riched text” elements to mark-up, sary and further development re- produce a XML Schema version of for example people, places and hy- sulted in V 3.1, which included the NITF, though the DTD will re- perlinks. features for news management. main the reference version. Provision is made for information Latest release is V 3.2, with a sig- about the document itself, such as nificant addition being the inclusion The NITF is widely used by the editorial urgency and copy- of a method of handling “Ruby” (a newspapers and news right. Other types of content can form of annotation for Japanese agencies and is well supported also be handled including embed- characters) in response to re- by system vendors. Some ded tables, lists, and photos. quests from Japanese users. typical applications are shown below.
AFP (Agence France Press) - NewsML/NITF text feeds in multiple languages. ANSA - All news stored and handled in NITF format, news feeds in NITF. AP Digital - NITF news feeds in several languages plus distribution of NITF content from other suppliers. CCI Europe - All CCI Europe's editorial installations use NITF based coding. Fully validated NITF for use with web content management systems and editorial systems. dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) Publishes NITF and uses NITF internally. INQ7 Interactive Inc - News website using NITF. Vends NITF- supporting software. LexisNexis A leading archive database for news. Uses NITF. NetPR (Polish Press Release wire) - Uses NITF internally , and publishes and receives NITF. The New York Times - Receives NITF and uses NITF internally. Primedia Business Magazines & Media - Syndicate articles to various content aggregators (Lexis/Nexis, Factiva, NY Times, etc.) using NITF. TT (Tidningarnas Telgrambyrå) - Publishes NITF and uses NITF internally. Tiscali GmbH - News channel built from NITF files delivered by regional newswire. XML Team Solutions - Real-time sports feed in SportsML that includes news stories formatted in NITF.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 21 Specialised Content Dedicated programmes dealing with specific types of news content allow for more efficient processing and the Specialised Content Working party is responsible for Designs for developments in this area. It also identifies external (non IPTC) standards and initiatives relevant to the Structured news industry. Within this Working Party there are a number of Working Groups dealing Data with specific information areas: SportsML, EventsML, ProgramGuideML, and Weather Data Definition. established as the leading XML tions (for example) is achieved by standard for the interchange of the use of Resource Files - in effect evelopment of applications to sports data, with a rapidly growing standard lists of metadata values. Dhandle various forms of struc- user base. Version 1.5 of the stan- tured data for the news industry re- dard has been approved and re- Extension mains an active area, with a leased and is now available as a A key feature of SportsML is that it number of projects under way. In free download from the SportsML can readily be extended to cover general the intention is that the web site (www.sportsml.org). other sports and provide output tai- standards developed will form part Changes for the latest release are lored to user requirements. For ex- of the new IPTC standards suite, mainly additions, and backwards ample, Associated Press (AP) but will also be suitable for use in compatibility has been maintained. provided a SportsML news feed for stand-alone mode. Although the the 2004 Olympics - having pro- main aim is to produce standards Modular duced an appropriate Resource to meet news industry require- SportsML consists of a core mod- File - and are offering a service for ments it is recognised that the ule with supplementary plug-in the Winter Olympics. standards may also have applica- modules for specific sports. The tions in other areas. core module handles information that is common to all sports , such ProgramGuideML Working Groups as scores, schedules, standings, ProgramGuideML is based on The main projects are dealt with by and statistics. The latest release NewsML and designed to provide dedicated Working Groups with in- also makes provision for a series a mechanism for news agencies terest areas under development in- of “Wagering Lines” to handle bet- and newspapers to handle radio cluding Sports, Television and ting statistics. Other core additions and television programme informa- Radio Programme listings, Events for V1.5 - included in response to tion as individual programme items listings and Weather Data. Consid- user demand - provide additional or as listings. A typical application eration has also been given to a details on team and individual per- would be for a news agency to ob- system for Election results, but it formances, along with statistics on tain the information from a number was decided that the wide range of conferences and leagues. of broadcasters and consolidate it election systems in use made it im- into a series of formatted daily list- practicable to have a common ap- Sport specific ings for newspapers. plication. Plug-in modules provide for infor- In addition to overseeing work mation that is specific to a given Information on IPTC developments for struc- sport, such as how a score was Initial development was for a sys- tured content, the Working Party made, or what defensive actions tem that included separate ele- investigates XML-based systems were taken. There are plug-ins for ments for presentation data and being produced by outside organi- American Football, Baseball, Bas- programme information. sations to see if they have applica- ketball, Golf, Ice Hockey, Soccer However, discussions with the tions in the news industry. Where and Tennis. Recent enhance- TV-Anytime Consortium (see box) this is the case the opportunities ments included additions to Ameri- showed that there was a lot of com- for co-operation are investigated. can football and baseball to mon ground between the metadata provide more comprehensive per- required for programme informa- formance statistics. Work is also tion in both applications. Broad- SportsML underway to develop a plug-in for casting organisations will be Oldest of the special purpose motor sports. generating the information for use standards, SportsML is now firmly Consistent identification of spe- in TV-Anytime applications and cific teams, sports, players and ac- there are clear advantages to us-
22 IPTC Spectrum January 2005 Specialised Content
ing this (available) information for though there were a number of anticipated that new structured ProgramGuideML. programmes dealing with events content programs (like EventsML) data (in general) they did not fully will conform to the general struc- Layout meet the needs of the news indus- ture for IPTC standards and make Accordingly the original approach try. Another factor was that the use of common components was modified to use the TV- most widely used packages - iCal- where appropriate. Anytime programme information, endar and vCalendar - were not The new standard is intended to with dedicated layout information XML based and so would be diffi- allow information interchange in to suit specific print media. The TV- cult to integrate with other IPTC the following areas: Anytime data is taken in by the use standards. Event publishing - communicating of a namespace and to allow this Because of this it was decided information about events, including ProgramGuideML is only available that the best approach would be to associated news items. as a XML Schema (TV-Anytime is produce a new standard. Event planning - managing the in XML Schema form). coverage of breaking or upcoming IPTC Standard newsworthy events, including sup- Support Once the need had been identified port for gathering associated news ProgramGuideML was developed attempts were made to co-operate items. by the NSK NewsML group, and on development with other stan- Event coverage - communicating changes to this group mean that dards bodies. Unfortunately this information about coverage of the members are unable to provide proved impractical, so work was events by news organizations (of- the continuing support that the started to produce EventsML as a ten referred to as a “Daybook”). standard will need as it comes into IPTC standard within the new stan- This application also needs a general use. Since the develop- dards suite. mechanism for linkages between ment stage is substantially com- As with other IPTC initiatives, the resulting news packages and plete it was decided that the intention is to produce a standard event coverage information. standard should be formally that will be useful for both IPTC adopted as a Release Candidate members and for non-members, Requirements and made available for implement- and comments from non-members Following the established pattern ers to test. are encouraged by the use of an for new IPTC standards the first A download package with the open electronic discussion group. step was to establish the detailed ProgramGuideML V1 specification Business Requirements, and this and XML Schema is available from Consistent design was done using the same template www.programguideml.org. At an early stage consideration as for NewsML 2. The Require- A number of other IPTC mem- was given to the form that ments have been formally ap- bers have expressed an interest in EventsML would take and it was proved - and are available from using ProgramGuideML and it is decided that the standard should www.eventsml.org . Development hoped that one of them will take be designed so it can be used on will now continue according to the over responsibility for further de- its own - as is the case with new working practices. velopment and support for the SportsML - but also be suitable for standard. use with NewsML and generally consistent with other members of Weather Data the IPTC family. EventsML Subsequent developments - in Definition First steps to look at the need for, particular the efforts of the Stan- Another area under active consid- and feasibility of, a mark-up lan- dards Committee to establish a eration is weather, with the aim of guage for news events were taken new work structure based on a ge- producing a Weather Data Defini- during 2003, and the project has neric model of news - have con- tion (WDD). A typical application since been formally adopted with firmed this approach. It is now for this would be to let a local news- formation of the EventsML Work- ing Group. Coverage TV-Anytime In essence, an event is something that occurs. It may be planned or The TV-Anytime Forum is developing specifications to make use unplanned, but for it to become of mass-storage in consumer electronics equipment for audio- news it has to be covered in some visual and other services, and is network independent with regard way. Information generated by the to the means for content delivery. Specifications will also deal with coverage has to be exchanged and interoperable and integrated systems from content providers (and stored, and there is a business creators) through service providers to the consumers. need for a standard way of doing Membership of the Forum includes broadcasters, content this. There is also a need for a sys- owners, service providers, electronic equipment manufacturers tem to deal with the coverage of and software providers. developing events - that is break- As part of their system TV-Anytime has an extensive set of ing news. metadata to describe content, allowing users to search and select Investigations had shown that al- items. This is the content information used by ProgramGuideML.
IPTC Spectrum January 2005 23 Specialised Content
paper provide a tailored service on Scope of the proposed standard as part of a weather package - their web site - weather is seen as will include predicted, current and such as tide details and astronomi- having particular user appeal to lo- historical weather information. cal information - will also be cov- cal audiences. Other data that could be reported ered.
Public Relations
Producing and developing standards for the news industry has to be complemented by appropriate promotion to Improving ensure the widest possible use of the standards. These activities are also Intelligence intended to encourage new members to join IPTC and take part in the standards development process. Archive identity for the IPTC NewsCodes An archive of the press releases is (sets of news metadata). maintained on the IPTC web site to provide a developing picture. Is- Presentations romoting IPTC, and the stan- sues of the IPTC Mirror (starting Presentations are a valuable way Pdards it produces and main- from August 2001) and IPTC of increasing awareness of IPTC’s tains, is a continuing process. Speectrum are also available in activities and standards and IPTC Although activities are primarily high-definition versions suitable for held two events aimed at the news aimed at the news industry it is rec- printing, and in web versions which industry - the first was to NAA Wire ognised that some aspects of include hyperlinks. Committee at NEXPO during June IPTC’s work may have wider appli- Redesign of the IPTC web sites 2004, with the second taking place cations. has given an integrated image, at IFRA EXPO in October 2004. Regular press releases cover de- helping to emphasise the relation- Areas covered included an out- velopments and achievements at ships between the standards, as line of what IPTC is and does, an the main meetings, as well as high- well as providing a clear picture of overview of the standards in gen- lighting other activities. These re- what IPTC does. eral, with details of the individual leases are widely distributed by The sites give easy access to the standards and the NewsCodes. two members who specialise in individual standards, with both the IPTC members also provided a this area, as well as by other mem- standards and supporting docu- strong contingent of speakers for ber news agencies, and released mentation available for free down- the 2nd International Symposium on the IPTC web site. Individual load. on Chinese NewsML, held in Hong members also issue their own While the main www.iptc.org site Kong. IPTC-related releases when this is acts as a portal to the standards, As with other IPTC activities the considered appropriate. care has been taken to obtain the success of these events depends appropriate web addresses for on the efforts of members and indi- each of the standards. These now vidual delegate, both in giving include www.newscodes.org and presentations and in helping with www.newscodes.com as part of the organisation and promotion of the effort to provide a common events.
Presentations Presentations by members are an important part of the IPTC publicity programme, Here PR Committee Chairman Walter Baranger (News YorkTimes) provides an overview of the IPTC standards to an audience at the IFRA EXPO.
24 IPTC Spectrum January 2005