International Press Telecommunications Council
Encyclopedia
The International Press Telecommunications Council, based in London
, United Kingdom
, is a consortium
of the world's major news agencies and news industry vendors. It develops and maintains technical standards for improved news exchange that are used by virtually every major news organization in the world.
Currently about 70 companies and organizations from the news industry are members of the IPTC.
Most of IPTC's current work involves XML-based business-to-business standards for sharing news, and development of advanced metadata
to describe and classify news text, photos, graphics, videos and other media.
The IPTC was established in 1965 by a group of news organisations including the Alliance Européenne des Agences de Presse, American Newspaper Publishers Association (now NAA
), Fédération Internationale des Editeurs de Journaux (now WAN
) and the North American News Agencies (a joint committee of Associated Press
, Canadian Press
and United Press International
) to safeguard the telecommunications interests of the world's press.
properties that can be applied to images, part of a broader standard developed in the early 1990s and known as the IPTC Information Interchange Model
(IIM). Embedded IIM image information is often referred to as an "IPTC header".
The Extensible Metadata Platform
(XMP) has largely superseded IIM's image file header structure, but the IIM properties are redefined in the IPTC Core schema and extended by the IPTC Extension schema, both used in XMP. Most image manipulation programs keep the XMP and non-XMP IPTC properties synchronized.
Because of its nearly universal acceptance among photographers — even amateurs — this is by far IPTC's most widely used standard.
, in 2008 IPTC launched a new series of standards that feature modular construction and many opportunities for embedding metadata. This allows developers to build applications that use only the parts if the IPTC G2-Standards that are required by the customer, and that reduce programming costs by re-using XML and metadata modules. Further the G2-Standards extend the scope of exchange formats beyond news content, they include event data and well organised information about persons, organisations, points of interest, geopolitical areas or abstract concepts.
These G2-Standards are available now: NewsML-G2
, EventsML-G2
and SportsML-G2
. Although they have different roles within the news industry they share much of the same XML coding.
acts as an envelope and organizer so that news providers can create single news items — text, photos, video or anything else — and bundle them into concise cohesive packages than can be automatically processed by web CMSs or newsroom systems. The content and relationships of the individual news items can be described using a rich set of metadata
.
NewsML-G2 is not a text or image mark-up format. For example, it does not contain paragraph or headline tagging. Rather, it is an envelope and organizer that does not, by itself, act as a content format.
optimises the sharing of event information such as meetings, sports events, elections, and even rocket launches — virtually any announced activity that can be broadly classified as an "event." Using XML and metadata, EventsML-G2 allows news providers to create rich descriptions of events plus information about planned coverage, and then share that information with web sites, databases, newsrooms or other customers.
is a convenient way to share sports statistics in a concise, unambiguous way. All major sports are supported, and certain sports that are known for rich or especially complex statistics (such as baseball
) can use special add-on modules. SportsML-G2 has found wide usage outside the news industry; among the user communities are sports teams, fantasy sports leagues, sports betting firms and sports historians. SportsML-G2 is the newer sibling of SportsML
.
is an XML standard developed by the IPTC to provide a media-independent, structural enveloping framework for multi-media news. It was recently superseded by NewsML-G2
, although IPTC plans to support this standards as NewsML 1.x indefinitely.
is a convenient way to share sports statistics in a concise, unambiguous way. All major sports are supported, and certain sports that are known for rich or especially complex statistics (such as baseball
) can use special add-on modules. SportsML has found wide usage outside the news industry; among the user communities are sports teams, fantasy sports leagues, sports betting firms and sports historians. The newer sibling of SportsML is SportsML-G2
.
is still a widely used format for plain text news, despite being 30 years old. It is a close relative of the Newspaper Association of America
North American standard ANPA-1312
, and uses similar control and other special characters to create a file that can be used to drive computerized news editing systems, photo typesetters or even teleprinter
machines.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, is a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....
of the world's major news agencies and news industry vendors. It develops and maintains technical standards for improved news exchange that are used by virtually every major news organization in the world.
Currently about 70 companies and organizations from the news industry are members of the IPTC.
Most of IPTC's current work involves XML-based business-to-business standards for sharing news, and development of advanced metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
to describe and classify news text, photos, graphics, videos and other media.
The IPTC was established in 1965 by a group of news organisations including the Alliance Européenne des Agences de Presse, American Newspaper Publishers Association (now NAA
Newspaper Association of America
The Newspaper Association of America is a trade association representing approximately 2000 newspapers in the United States and Canada. Member newspapers represented by the NAA include large daily papers, non-daily and small-market publications, as well as digital and multiplatform...
), Fédération Internationale des Editeurs de Journaux (now WAN
World Association of Newspapers
The World Association of Newspapers is a non-profit, non-governmental organization made up of 76 national newspaper associations, 12 news agencies, 10 regional press organisations and individual newspaper executives in 100 countries...
) and the North American News Agencies (a joint committee of Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Canadian Press Enterprises Inc. is the entity which "will take over the operations of the Canadian Press" according to a November 26, 2010 article in the Toronto Star...
and United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
) to safeguard the telecommunications interests of the world's press.
Photo/Image metadata
The IPTC defined a set of metadataMetadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
properties that can be applied to images, part of a broader standard developed in the early 1990s and known as the IPTC Information Interchange Model
IPTC Information Interchange Model
The Information Interchange Model is a file structure and set of metadata attributes that can be applied to text, images and other media types...
(IIM). Embedded IIM image information is often referred to as an "IPTC header".
The Extensible Metadata Platform
Extensible Metadata Platform
The Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform is a standard, created by Adobe Systems Inc., for processing and storing standardized and proprietary information relating to the contents of a file....
(XMP) has largely superseded IIM's image file header structure, but the IIM properties are redefined in the IPTC Core schema and extended by the IPTC Extension schema, both used in XMP. Most image manipulation programs keep the XMP and non-XMP IPTC properties synchronized.
Because of its nearly universal acceptance among photographers — even amateurs — this is by far IPTC's most widely used standard.
IPTC G2-Standards Family
Using XML and the W3C’s model for the Semantic WebSemantic Web
The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
, in 2008 IPTC launched a new series of standards that feature modular construction and many opportunities for embedding metadata. This allows developers to build applications that use only the parts if the IPTC G2-Standards that are required by the customer, and that reduce programming costs by re-using XML and metadata modules. Further the G2-Standards extend the scope of exchange formats beyond news content, they include event data and well organised information about persons, organisations, points of interest, geopolitical areas or abstract concepts.
These G2-Standards are available now: NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2 is an XML multimedia news exchange format standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council.As part of the IPTC G2-Standards family, NewsML-G2 acts as an envelope for one or more news items or a structured package of links to news items, and contains metadata to...
, EventsML-G2
EventsML-G2
EventsML-G2 is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of event information such as meetings, sports events, elections, even rocket launches — virtually anything that can be broadly classified as an "event."The...
and SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2 is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of sports statistics and information such as schedules, results, standings, team statistics and individual statistics....
. Although they have different roles within the news industry they share much of the same XML coding.
NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2 is an XML multimedia news exchange format standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council.As part of the IPTC G2-Standards family, NewsML-G2 acts as an envelope for one or more news items or a structured package of links to news items, and contains metadata to...
acts as an envelope and organizer so that news providers can create single news items — text, photos, video or anything else — and bundle them into concise cohesive packages than can be automatically processed by web CMSs or newsroom systems. The content and relationships of the individual news items can be described using a rich set of metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
.
NewsML-G2 is not a text or image mark-up format. For example, it does not contain paragraph or headline tagging. Rather, it is an envelope and organizer that does not, by itself, act as a content format.
EventsML-G2
EventsML-G2EventsML-G2
EventsML-G2 is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of event information such as meetings, sports events, elections, even rocket launches — virtually anything that can be broadly classified as an "event."The...
optimises the sharing of event information such as meetings, sports events, elections, and even rocket launches — virtually any announced activity that can be broadly classified as an "event." Using XML and metadata, EventsML-G2 allows news providers to create rich descriptions of events plus information about planned coverage, and then share that information with web sites, databases, newsrooms or other customers.
SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2 is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of sports statistics and information such as schedules, results, standings, team statistics and individual statistics....
is a convenient way to share sports statistics in a concise, unambiguous way. All major sports are supported, and certain sports that are known for rich or especially complex statistics (such as baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
) can use special add-on modules. SportsML-G2 has found wide usage outside the news industry; among the user communities are sports teams, fantasy sports leagues, sports betting firms and sports historians. SportsML-G2 is the newer sibling of SportsML
SportsML
SportsML is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of sports statistics and information such as schedules, results, standings, team statistics and individual statistics....
.
NewsML
NewsMLNewsML
NewsML is an XML standard designed to provide a media-independent, structural framework for multi-media news. NewsML was developed by — and is a registered trademark of — the IPTC...
is an XML standard developed by the IPTC to provide a media-independent, structural enveloping framework for multi-media news. It was recently superseded by NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2
NewsML-G2 is an XML multimedia news exchange format standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council.As part of the IPTC G2-Standards family, NewsML-G2 acts as an envelope for one or more news items or a structured package of links to news items, and contains metadata to...
, although IPTC plans to support this standards as NewsML 1.x indefinitely.
News Industry Text Format
News Industry Text Format (NITF) is an XML specification published by the IPTC that is designed to standardize the content and structure of text-based news articles.SportsML
SportsMLSportsML
SportsML is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of sports statistics and information such as schedules, results, standings, team statistics and individual statistics....
is a convenient way to share sports statistics in a concise, unambiguous way. All major sports are supported, and certain sports that are known for rich or especially complex statistics (such as baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
) can use special add-on modules. SportsML has found wide usage outside the news industry; among the user communities are sports teams, fantasy sports leagues, sports betting firms and sports historians. The newer sibling of SportsML is SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2
SportsML-G2 is an XML news exchange standard of the IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council. It optimizes the sharing of sports statistics and information such as schedules, results, standings, team statistics and individual statistics....
.
IPTC 7901
IPTC 7901IPTC 7901
IPTC 7901 is a news service text markup specification published by the International Press Telecommunications Council that was designed to standardize the content and structure of text news articles...
is still a widely used format for plain text news, despite being 30 years old. It is a close relative of the Newspaper Association of America
Newspaper Association of America
The Newspaper Association of America is a trade association representing approximately 2000 newspapers in the United States and Canada. Member newspapers represented by the NAA include large daily papers, non-daily and small-market publications, as well as digital and multiplatform...
North American standard ANPA-1312
ANPA-1312
ANPA-1312 is a 7-bit news agency text markup specification published by the Newspaper Association of America, designed to standardize the content and structure of text news articles....
, and uses similar control and other special characters to create a file that can be used to drive computerized news editing systems, photo typesetters or even teleprinter
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
machines.