| San Francisco, USA, 31 July 2002 --
The organization that coordinates the technology of transmitting
news worldwide
-- the International
Press Telecommunications Council -- has approved a set
of guidelines to help governments and corporations disseminate
documents to the press.
The new guidelines offer basic advice on the electronic
formatting, posting and distribution of text, photos
and other documents. The document is written as general
guidance for executives and politicians who release documents
to the news media.
It was prompted by the deluge of documents in more than
10 formats during the impeachment hearings of President
Clinton, and the ever-increasing flow of paper from virtually
every major government and corporate agency around the
world.
The Newspaper Association of America said that it will
also adopt the guidelines. The action was taken at the
IPTC's Annual General Meeting and represents the endorsement
of more than 40 news agencies and news system vendors
worldwide.
The IPTC's Annual General Meeting is one of four major
IPTC annual meetings; regional and technical meetings
are called as needed. Nearly 40 of the IPTC's 47 member
organizations attended this year's Annual General Meeting,
which was held in San Francisco over four days in July.
Members also approved a maintenance release of its markup
language for news text, NITF. Based on XML and other
widely recognized standards, NITF is quickly growing
as a replacement for the old teletype-based transmission
standards that are still widely used.
The latest version, NITF 3.1, contains improvements
for managing the flood news stories that arrive daily.
In other actions, members elected Dr. John W. Iobst
of the United States to a one-year term as chairman of
the IPTC. Dr. Iobst has worked at the Newspaper Association
of America for more than 25 years, and he is currently
a vice president overseeing newspaper operations and
research. He serves on several other ANSI and news industry
standards groups.
Dr. Iobst succeeds Mr. Peter Müller of Switzerland,
who did not stand for re-election.
Members also approved a slate of vice-chairmen and heard
details of the upcoming retirement of Mr. David Allen.
the IPTC's Managing Director. A successor to Mr. Allen
is expected to be announced in autumn 2002.
The IPTC's next quarterly meeting will be held in Amsterdam
in October 2002.
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