We are pleased to announce the latest release of IPTC NewsCodes, including our main subject vocabulary for news content, IPTC MediaTopics.

This update includes:

New Media Topics terms

The new terms were requested by MediaTopics users Ritzau in Denmark, NTB in Norway and AFP in France.

• drowning (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001321)
• men (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001328)
• poisoning (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001322)
• sports coaching (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001323)
• sports management and ownership (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001324)
• sports officiating (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001325)
• torture (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001320)
• women (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001327)
• women’s rights (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001326)

Retired Media Topics terms

• accomplishment (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000497). Use award and prize (20000498) or record and achievement (20000499) instead.
• people (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000502). Use more specific terms instead.

Label changes to Media Topics

Please note that we only ever make changes to labels to make the meaning clearer, we never change the meaning of a term.

• transfer -> sports transaction (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20001148)
• minister (government) -> minister and secretary (government) (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000613)
• “athletics, track & field” -> “athletics” in en-GB and “track and field” in en-US (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000827)
• plant -> flowers and plants (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000507)
• imperial and royal matters -> royalty (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic/20000506)

Media Topics hierarchy moves

• “award and prize” (20000498) and record and achievement (20000499) were moved to the top level “human interest” term because we retired the parent term “accomplishment”
• birthday (20001238), celebrity (20000505), high society (20000504) and “human mishap” (20000503) were moved to the top level “human interest” term to under the top level “human interest” term because we retired the parent term “people”.

Definition changes in Media Topics

• Changes under “human interest” branch: animal (20000500), anniversary (20001237), award and prize (20000498), ceremony (20000501), funeral and memorial service (20001235), wedding (20001236), birthday (20001238)
• Grammar fixes in en-GB and en-US descriptions for 20000037, 03000000, 20000140, 20000215, 20000228, 20000279, 20000321, 20000327, 20000390, 20000426, 20001229, 20001220, 20000504, 20000339, 20000571, 20000575, 20000590, 20000591, 20000600, 20000604, 20000619, 20000630, 20000658, 20000852

Changes to mappings from MediaTopics to other vocabularies

We had a major review of MediaTopic to Wikidata mappings, thanks to Lucy Butcher from Wirecutter (part of The New York Times, an IPTC member) for her contributions. Many terms have had their WIkidata mappings edited or added. In the near future, we are planning to add mappings from Wikidata back to NewsCodes.

Changes to other NewsCodes vocabularies

The Genre vocabulary had a major update, the second half of the review that was started in the February release.

New Genre terms:

• Live Coverage (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/LiveCoverage)
• Preview (http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Preview)

Retired terms:

• Scener (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Scener) – use From the Scene instead
• Text only (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Text_only) – Use Transcript and Verbatim instead
• Update (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Update) – Use Synopsis or Briefing instead
• Wrap (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Wrap) – Use Synopsis or Briefing instead
• Wrapup (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Wrapup) – Use Synopsis or Briefing instead

Label (and definition) changes:

• Daybook -> Planner (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Daybook)
• Listing of Facts -> Fact Box (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/ListingOfFacts)
• Summary -> Briefing (https://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/genre/Summary)

Definition changes for: Biography, Birth Announcement, Curtain Raiser, Exclusive, Feature, Fixture, Forecast, From the Scene, Interview, Music, Obituary, Opinion, Polls and Surveys, Press Release, Press-Digest, Profile, Program, Question and Answer Session, Quote, Raw Sound, Response to a Question, Results Listings and Statistics, Retrospective, Review, Side bar and Supporting Information, Special Report, Synopsis.

As usual, all changes can be seen:

• Directly on the CV server at http://cv.iptc.org/
• In machine-readable form using SKOS, NewsML-G2 and NewsML 1 (see the cv.iptc.org guidelines for details)
• HTML tree view at https://www.iptc.org/std/NewsCodes/treeview/mediatopic/mediatopic-en-GB.html
• As an interactive diagram on http://show.newscodes.org/
• In Excel format from https://www.iptc.org/std/NewsCodes/IPTC-MediaTopic-NewsCodes.xlsx

Please let us know if you spot any problems. If you are an IPTC member you can post issues, questions and suggestions to the NewsCodes Working Group list at iptc-newscodes-dev@groups.io.