A communiqué from David Megginson announces the release of a version 2.0 NewsML Toolkit which provides a read/write interface to NewsML. Developed under the International Press Telecommunications Council, NewsML is an XML-based "news-industry packaging and metadata standard for exchanging multi-part news and information in multiple media; it helps content providers represent and manage news throughout the news lifecycle, including production, interchange, and consumer use." The NewsML Toolkit is an open-source Java library for reading and processing NewsML documents. Version 2.0 of the NewsML Toolkit has been developed through sponsorship provided by Reuters PLC; it is released under the Gnu Lesser General Public License (LGPL), so this free NewsML source code library may be redistributed and modified. While version 1.1 of the NewsML Toolkit was mostly a read-only interface, version 2.0 provides "the ability to create and modify NewsML documents programatically; it includes support for creating new nodes and modifying existing ones. Client applications can now use the toolkit to perform simple or complex modifications on a NewsML package before saving it back to XML, or even to create a new NewsML package entirely from scratch. Version 2.0 is backwards-compatible with v1.1, so it won't break existing applications. The new release also provides a detailed manual designed for programmers using the NewsML Toolkit in their own programs."

NewsML Overview: "Designed to provide a media-independent, structural framework for news, NewsML can be applied at all stages in the (electronic) news life cycle. Typical uses would include: in and between editorial systems; between news agencies and their customers; between publishers and news aggregators; and between news service providers and end users. Because it is intended for use in electronic production, delivery and archiving it does not include specific provision for traditional paper-based publishing, though formats intended for this purpose -- such as the News Industry Text Format -- can be accommodated. Similarly it is not primarily intended for use in editing or creating news content, though it may be used as a basis for systems doing this... NewsML is the structure used to publish news in any format. It can be used by news providers to combine their pictures, video, text, graphics and audio files in news output available on web sites, mobile phones, high end desktops, interactive television and any other device... Because the news is structured, devices receiving the news can select the appropriate content. For example, a Web page being viewed over a broadband link might show all media types including video while a current-generation mobile phone might receive only a text headline as an SMS message." (adapted from the website description and Reuters NewsML Showcase)