20 September 2000

PRESS RELEASE

IPTC ISSUES NITF VERSION 2.5, REVAMPS WEB SITE

London (Sept. 20, 2000) –- An updated version of the News Industry Text Format is now posted on a redesigned and more informative web site – www.nitf.org .

NITF is an XML-based DTD designed for the markup and delivery of news content in a variety of ways, including print, wireless devices and the Web. It was developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council, an international association of news providers, and the Newspaper Association of America, Vienna, Va. The standards groups first released NITF in spring 1999, and an NITF Maintenance Committee has made a number of improvements since then.

NITF and NewsML: Both the NITF and the NewsML wrapper can be stand alone but may also be used in a complimentary manner as NITF objects can be moved within and managed by NewsML in a multimedia environment. NewsML Version 1.0 final is expected to be released next month.

"This Version 2.5 of NITF incorporates several changes sought by news organizations that have been putting the standard to work," said Tony Rentschler, senior software engineer at Associated Press in New York, and chairman of the Maintenance Committee. "It’s a cleaner, more workable DTD both for news providers and their customers."

Among the changes:

• Clarification of language and time elements
• Deprecation or removal of several unneeded HTML elements
• Addition of an alternate code element (<alt-code>), for reference to an internal or external controlled vocabulary as a way of identifying a company, organization or person, among other things.

Alan Karben, vice president of product development at ScreamingMedia Inc. in New York, is editor of the DTD and maintains a list of suggested changes from those who are implementing NITF.

The new website contains extensive material on the revised DTD, including a tutorial, dynamic documentation, links to discussion forums and of course the DTD itself (with or without documentation). Also posted is a link to the IPTC’s Subject Code list, for identifying the content of news material in any media. Walter Baranger of the New York Times Technology Department is documentation editor.