Survey of Newspaper Production Flow for E-paper - Kungliga ...

Johan Danckwardt
Survey of newspaper production flow for e-paper 8 Recommended continued work
8 Recommended continued work
This chapter will describe what developments I think are important for making it possible to
deploy an e-paper workflow in the near future.
8.1 Internal systems and organization
To render a system as automated as possible, there are several issues for Sundsvalls Tidning
to solve. Regarding the editorial content system Newspilot it is well adapted in order to be
able to launch new publishing channels. The Newspilot system already generates XML files
for Sundsvalls Tidnings webpage. For a future e-paper production flow, the Newspilot system
should generate XML files intended for an e-paper edition. This should not be any problem as
there are small differences between the two different XML file formats. There are some
parameters that are needed to be added, for example the priority index.
The priority index is already available in the Newspilot content system, but is not currently in
use. The problem is that the priority index can not be set without human intervention. This
could cause a problem when the reporters are supposed to set the priority. It is not strange if a
person thinks his work is more important than it really is in comparison to the actual news
value. Here Sundsvalls Tidning faces a difficult task solving this evaluation process when
they are forced to state rules for the priority index. The rules must be stated so there can not
be any questions of the importance of an article. It must obvious how the article should be
marked regarding the priority index.
In a future e-paper management system, it is necessary to incorporate a system that manages
the subscribers. As I see it, Sundsvalls Tidning already has an excellent system to work with
and develop in close cooperation with the system’s supplier PRESSsystem. There are sections
like the CRM section in the system, that in my mind inspires to the creation of similar
sections that could handle different types of subscription and personalized editions, depending
on each user’s personal profile.
When I made the interviews at Sundsvalls Tidning, I got the impression that the work with
defining advertising formats for an e-paper edition was not yet initiated. This is an important
part of the product, besides the revenue from the subscribers and single copies sales,
advertising is the only major source of income. Sundsvalls Tidning must together with the
other newspapers in Sweden, decide and agree on standards regarding future e-paper
advertising. It would be wise to agree on common file formats and sizes as soon as possible,
so that the newspapers could avoid the situation that occurs today regarding advertising on the
web with an extensive number of possible advertisement sizes and file formats.
8.2 Desired new formats of external content
It turned out that the suppliers of external content have the ability to deliver file types that
would be suitable for an e-paper production system. The file types that the external content
suppliers can deliver today, or in the near future is based on XML for the text content. Today,
Sundsvalls Tidning gets their content in several different file types and some of them are not
as suitable as an open XML based file type. If Sundsvalls Tidning wants to follow my
recommendation they are advised to negotiate with their external content suppliers so that
their demands are met, regarding the desired format.
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