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The proposed News Markup Language was pushed a little closer to completion by a group of more than a dozen participants of The Media Center's Grammar Conference in Dallas on Jan. 8. The group developed a series of 40 tags and a five-item "to do" list to prepare a test version of the NML for a Feb. 1 deadline.

Hosted by Dale Peskin, Vice President for New Media for the A.H. Belo Corp., the follow up meeting was attended by Neil Chase, Northwestern University; Chris Feola, The Media Center at the American Press Institute; Kathy Foley, San Antonio Express-News; Tom Johnston, San Francisco State University; Alan Karben, Dow Jones; Retta Kelley, Cox Interactive; B.C. Krishna, Future Tense; Chris Ryan, The University of Kansas; Jay Small, Indianapolis Newspapers; Mike Steele, Media General; Dave Swint, The Media Center at the American Press Institute; Dennis Walsh, University of Miami of Ohio; Chris Willis, Dallasnews.com; Joe Wilson, WashingtonPost.com; and Steve Yelvington, Star-Tribune Online.

The to-do list for the NML:
1. Choose one software vendor to work with the Grammar Group on the NML pilot.
2. Develop prototype sites to test the DTD that will be written by Feola and Wilson.
3. Develop a marketing plan and get additional marketing advice for promoting the NML.
4. Bring in more input from additional newspapers and vendors at the February Editor & Publisher Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta.
5. Write a guideline document geared toward publishers, editors, managers, etc. in a non-technical-type language that explains how the NML will work, and how it will change the work flow in the newsroom.

In developing the tags for NML, the group recommended that the tags be as descriptive as possible, since the length of the tag will not affect how it works.

The tags suggested by the group include:

1. Source
2. Publication
3. Byline/Author
4. Credit
5. Page
6. Section
7. Editor
8. Date Published
9. Date Authored
10. Date Expired
11. Copyright
12. Record Type
13. Headlines and Subheads
14. Poster Heads/Decks
15. Lead
16. Text
17. Text That Didn't Run
18. Memos/Editor's Notes
19. Correction
20. Slug
21. Accession Number/Unique I.D.
22. Nut Graf/Summary
23. Column Name
24. Series Name
25. Series Number
26. First Character of Text
27. Package I.D.
28. Thread I.D.
29. Keywords
30. Dateline
31. Where
32. Date Event
33. Rights
34. Pull Quotes
35. Language
36. Version
37. Length and Word Count
38. Priority
39. Zones
40. Time Stamp

A follow-up meeting to discuss progress of the NML project will be at the E&P Interactive Newspapers Conference, February 17-20 in Atlanta. In the meantime, we will be setting up mailing lists for the working groups. More information will be sent out as its developed. Also remember that nothing is written in stone at this point, so suggestions are not only welcomed, but encouraged.

A follow-up meeting to discuss progress of the NML project will be at the E&P Interactive Newspapers Conference, February 17-20 in Atlanta. In the meantime, we will be setting up mailing lists for the working groups. More information will be sent out as its developed. Also remember that nothing is written in stone at this point, so suggestions are not only welcomed, but encouraged.

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