The NAA Wire Service Committee and the International Press Telecommunications Council have developed a new international standard for electronic news distribution.
The new format is based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language, which is designed to allow the same information to be used by different media. For example, text prepared by wire services could be used by newspapers for either printed products or on-line services without substantial reformatting.
The new standard is called the SGML News Industry Text Format Document Type Definition. It is now available for testing and comment.
NAA and IPTC would like to thank the following companies that helped develop the standard: Agence France Press, the Apalachicola Times, the Associated Press, Deutsche Press, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, Newhouse Newspapers, Lexis-Nexis, Reuters and United Press International.
For a copy of the standard, contact John Iobst, NAA's director of advanced computer science. E-mail is naanetwork!naa!iobst@naaatt.attmail.com ; phone, (703) 648-1224.
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