A preview version of the NITF 3.2 DTD and documentation has been released by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). The Version 3.2 DTD has support for Ruby, adds the xml:lang attribute to the "common" class, and implements other enhancements. The IPTC membership will vote on the NITF v3.2 changes at the Leipzig Autumn Meeting (October 8-10, 2003). The News Industry Text Format (NITF) is "an XML-based vocabulary designed for the markup and delivery of news content in a variety of ways, including print, wireless devices and the Web. It provides a structural framework for the representation of news, supporting the identification and description of many news story characteristics. Features which can be encoded include: (1) What subjects, organizations, and events the news item covers; (2) When the story was reported, issued, and revised; (3) Why the news item is newsworthy, based on the editor's analysis of the metadata; (4) Where the story was written, where the action took place, and where it may be released; (5) Who owns the copyright to the item and who may republish it."

NITF is one of several news-related specifications developed by participating members of the news industry within working parties of the IPTC. A companion enveloping and multimedia standard is NewsML. IPTC is also working on SportsML, ProgramGuideML, and EventsML as specialized vocabularies which may be used with NITF and NewsML core. IPTC membership is drawn from major news agencies, newspaper publishers, news distributors, and vendors worldwide.

About NewsML and Related IPTC Specifications

The "standard XML text format used by the news media" is News Industry Text Formal (NITF), providing a structure for independent news articles. The mechanism for structuring of multimedia news packages is provided by the NewsML standard, another major initiative of The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). NewsML (XML for News) is a standard for news markup and management, designed as a news wrapper, in which (1) "all formats and media types are recognized equally; (2) uniform metadata may be used for all media objects; (3) development and packaging of news items is supported; (4) a recommended format for text objects is NITF [NITF is an XML standard designed to structure independent news articles]; (5) one may express the named relationships between news items and their parts; (6) alternative representations of the same part are supported; (7) attachment of metadata from standard and non-standard schemes, including the IPTC subject codes is supported." IPTC's related XML-based markup languages for specialized domains include SportsML, ProgramGuideML, and EventsML.

"Both NewsML and NITF provide for use of an IPTC-managed Subject Reference System (SRS) which allows Information Providers access to a universal language independant coding system for indicating the subject content and for describing other features of news items. These include Subjects, Subject Qualifiers, Media, NewsItem type and Genre.

The The Chinese NewsML Community "has been set up by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is funded by Innovation and Technology Commission, HKSAR. Its charter is to establish and promote a local NewsML standard and supporting tools in order to speed up the pace of e-business in Hong Kong and enhance Hong Kong's commercial competitiveness in the world."

IPTC was established in 1965 "to safeguard the telecommunications interests of the World's Press; IPTC membership is drawn from major news agencies, newspaper publishers, news distributors and vendors from around the globe."