NewsML™, NITF & NewsCodes The winning triple Michael Steidl IPTC Managing Director ANSA/FIEG meeting 19 April 2006, Rome

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved2 Who is what NewsML 1: News Markup Language for managing and packaging of news –allows versioning of news items: easy tracking of breaking news = evolving stories. –rich set of management metadata: publishing status (“usable”, ”embargoed”, “canceled”, …) why updated, links to other news items (like “see also”) –packaging of news items of different media types (text, photo, …) NITF: News Industry Text Format for marking up text news –inline markup of text –structure for semi-layout (e.g. tables) NewsCodes: for proper categorisation –Subject NewsCodes with about 1300 terms, in three levels

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved3 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built: Structured content: story package Top Content Container = the NewsItem

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved4 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built: Structured content: story package Top Content Container text / role = interview Content Component

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved5 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built : Structured content: story package Top Content Container text / role = interview text / role = background

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved6 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built : Structured content: story package Top Content Container text / role = interview text / role = background photo / role = pic of person

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved7 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built : Structured content: web page package Top Content Container text / role = main story

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved8 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built : Structured content: web page package Top Content Container text / role = main story text / role = tickerline1 text / role = tickerline2 text / role = tickerline3 text / role = tickerline4

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved9 NewsML™ version 1 How a NewsML instance is built : Structured content: web page package Top Content Container text / role = main story text / role = tickerline1 text / role = tickerline2 text / role = tickerline3 text / role = tickerline4 text / role = sidebar photo role = pic text / role=newsaudio / role = sound

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved10 NewsML™ version 1 Versioning: The original version is circulated at 11:32 ANSA Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 1 Another news 5 Another news 4 Another news 3 Another news 2 Another news 1 Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 1

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved11 NewsML™ version 1 Versioning: An updated version is circulated at 13:43 ANSA Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 2 Another news 9 Another news 8 Another news 7 Another news 6 Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 1 Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 2 This is an update Italy wins world championship ID: abc123 Version: 1

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved12 NewsML™ version 1 Summary NewsML provides a rich, well designed and extensible set of metadata to enhance routing and selecting. NewsML allows to manage items: –each item has a unique identifier –each item has a distinct version NewsML allows to package several pieces of content into one item – content of various media types NewsML adds value to packaging: –“roles” identify why the content is there –groups of packages enhance the structure

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved13 NITF Feature “inline mark up”: one can add metadata to portions of the news text: The weather was superb today in Norfolk, Virginia. Made me want to take my boat, manufactured by the Acme Boat Company. This inline mark up may be used to add linked information to the final rendition: like identifying information about entities (“what company is that exactly?”) or a link to a background story. and to add layout “recommendations” (e.g. emphasised)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved14 NITF feature: “structure/layout mark up” today tide tomorrow next day third day beach high low ….  this sequence of strange looking code translates into a decent table (▼) and into a even more fashionable version on a layout system for newspapers.

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved15 NITF Summary NITF is a kind of “HTML for all kinds of media” – it delivers the features of easy web publishing also to the print layout. Inline mark up allows to link to reference information and to background information Structure mark up allows to convey layout information from the maker of the news to its users.

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved16 IPTC metadata codes The challenge: “The most effective communication occurs when all parties involved agree on the meaning of the terms being used.” (Fast,Leise & Steckel, “Boxes and Arrows”)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved17 IPTC metadata codes The challenge: “The most effective communication occurs when all parties involved agree on the meaning of the terms being used.” (Fast,Leise & Steckel, “Boxes and Arrows”) The solution: IPTC’s controlled vocabularies = Managed lists of codes (= abstract notations) with names (in different languages) with explicit explanations ( ≈ encyclopaedia) (in different lang.) each of the 28 for a specific scope to navigate content

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved18 IPTC NewsCodes The common name for ALL controlled vocabularies maintained by the IPTC is IPTC NewsCodes (More info at

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved19 IPTC NewsCodes Currently the IPTC maintains 28 sets of NewsCodes IPTC NewsCodes break out into groups:

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved20 IPTC NewsCodes What the content is about –Subject-NewsCodes: ~ 1300 terms at 3 levels –SubjectQualifier-NewsCodes: men, women, age groups, sports specific qualifiers, …

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved21 IPTC NewsCodes Formal attributes of the content –Genre-NewsCodes like current, update, wrap-up, background, feature, interview, review … –Scene-NewsCodes for photos like head-/half-/full-shot, interior/exterior, single/two/group … –Importance-NewsCodes identifying 6 levels –Location-NewsCodes are location qualifiers from “WorldRegion” to “Sublocation”

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved22 IPTC NewsCodes Formal attributes of the media data –Format (mimetype, mediatype) –Encoding –Encoders –Physical Characteristics –Colourspace

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved23 IPTC NewsCodes Codes to manage news exchange –(news) Provider-NewsCodes – already registered with the IPTC? –Status-NewsCodes (usable, embargoed …) –Priority-NewsCodes (9 levels) –Urgency-NewsCodes (9 levels) –Of interest to-NewsCodes identifying groups of the audience the content is aimed at –Relevance-NewsCodes identifying journalistic relevance –Role-NewsCodes to provide semantics to news package components (NewsML!)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved24 IPTC NewsCodes In depth … IPTC’s huge taxonomy to describe content The Subject NewsCodes

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved25 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes Three level tree structure ~ 1300 terms in total 17 top level Subjects (Broadest term) for art, crime/law, disaster, economy/business, education, environment, health, human interest, labour, lifestyle, politics, religion, science/technology, social issues, sports, unrest/war, weather ~ 350 intermediate level terms (Narrow term, NT) ~ 900 third (= lowest) level terms (most NT)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved26 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes Term structure: each term has … a Code: 8 digits (e.g ) a Name: language specific string (e.g: weather/forecast or Meteorología/Pronósticos) an Explanation: short text describing the concept of this Subject- NewsCode term management data (versioning)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved27 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes Where to apply … Explicit tags are provided by: NITF NewsML IIM (aka “IPTC Headers” for images) “IPTC Core” Scheme for XMP (for Adobe CS products)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved28 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes How to apply … manually by editors (pick lists) automatically by categorization engines “mixed mode”: suggested by categorizer, changed/approved by editor

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved29 IPTC NewsCodes A Subject NewsCodes example: “IPTC gave a presentation about their news technology at an ANSA/FIEG meeting in Rome” would e.g. resolve to: – (Technology/IT) – (Economy/Computing and IT) – (Economy/Media/News agency)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved30 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes You are in control: you can make your own subset select the Subject Codes you want to use for your agency select sets of Subject Codes for the various desks in your agency (e.g. economy, sports …)

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved31 IPTC NewsCodes The Subject NewsCodes Additional refinement: Qualifiers –primarily used for sports –adds facets to the content like men/women, individual/team, indoor/outdoor …

© 2006 IPTC All rights reserved32 Thank you for your time