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A standard news markup language would allow producers to take a text and common article components with an icon or code.  The advantages of the system include:

•   The editor becomes auteur, free to use as many or few stylistic elements as the code allows
•   The publishing system authors to the Web news markup tagset
•   Database and Database Applications become irrelevant
•   Writing and editing prevail in the system though some automation can simplify aspects of the code
•   Current and emerging styles for writing, editing design and output are supported.

An article from Washingtonpost.com, which announces Speaker New Gingrich's decision to step down from the House of Representatives, could be broken into components. The components would allow the editor to tag some sections for their relative urgency or importance, define other sections according to their content, or their sequence. The reader could use these sections to build files on personalities; develop a file on the context of events to develop a chronological understanding of how the dynamic or meaning of a particular news event changes; track what different individuals or groups (such as Congress) say about an event.  The possibilities are endless.

The following diagram of a story about Newt Gingrich decision to resign from the leadership of the House of Representatives shows how the code or the news markup language of an article might look:

NEWS MARKUP LANGUAGE
(codes are in brackets)


<date>
Nov. 8, 1998
<urgency icon>
<headline>
Gingrich Steps Down
<article>		 <section icon>
National
•   What happened
<Summary Graph> Players Profiles
•   What it Means
<Analysis>
<Context>
Newt Gingrich:
<career><personal profile>
<quotes>  
•   White House Reaction
•   Congressional Reaction

<Future>
<Background>
Bob Livingston
<career><personal profile>
<quotes>
•   Speaker's Job
•   Balance of Power
•   Week of Gingrich
Christopher Cox
<career><personal profile>
<quotes>