rNews is a data model for embedding machine-readable publishing metadata in web documents and a set of suggested implementations. In this document, we'll provide an overview rNews and an implementation guide. We'll get started by reviewing the class diagram of the rNews data model. Following that we'll review each individual class. After that we will use rNews to annotate a sample news document. We will conclude with a guide for implementors of rNews.

Of course, it would be unconscionably boring of us to simply rattle off the technical specification of each class. To stave off boredom we're introducing a real-world example: a real New York Times story appearing in a make-believe newspaper called "The IPTC Herald Tribune."

Figure 1: Expert from our sample story.

The typical news-focused website presents news in two major formats articles and media. Articles are composed of many attributes including dateline, body text, and word count. Media items come in many types such as audio, video, and image and are composed of attributes such as height, width and encoding. Articles and media items also share a number of common attributes including title, creation date, and copyright notice. The rNews data model, shown below, is built around these observations. This diagram shows the complete class diagram of the rNews data model.

Figure 2: The complete class diagram of the rNews data model.

As you can see, the rNews data model is centered around two classes NewsItem class and the Concept class. We'll start by describing the NewsItem class. This class models attributes common to both articles and media items. The NewsItem class is extended by four subclasses Article, ImageObject, VideoObject and AudioObject. Each of these classes models attributes particular to each NewsItem subtype. An Article object may have one or more associatedMedia objects of type ImageObject, VideoObject and AudioObject. A NewsItem may be associated with one or more UserComments objects.

The other central class is the Concept class. Below this class is shown below in greater detail.

Figure: Relations between the Concept class and its subclasses.

The Concept class is used to model abstract concepts. It is extended by subclasses that model specific types of real-world concepts. The Place class in conjunction with the GeoCoordinates class extends the Concept class with geospatial attributes. The Person and the Organization classes model attributes particular to each entity type. Lastly the Place, Person and Organization classes may be associated with a PostalAddress.

A number of relations exist between the NewsItem class and the Concept class and its subclasses. An NewsItem may be about or it may mention a Concept object. Additionally a NewsItem may have several relations to both Person and Organization objects.

• If a Person or an Organization is primarily responsible for the creation of a NewsItem, then a creator relation exists between the two objects.
• If a Person or an Organization has substantially but not primarily contributed to the creation of a NewsItem, then a contributor relation exists between the two objects.
• If a Person or an Organization is responsible for the editing of a NewsItem, then a editor relation exists between the two objects.
• If a Person or an Organization is primarily responsible for the distribution of a NewsItem, then a provider relation exists between the two objects.
• If a Person or an Organization is the copyright holder responsible for the creation of a NewsItem, then a copyrightHolder relation exists between the two objects.
• If an Organization is the entity on whose behalf the creator of the NewsItem was working, then a sourceOrganization relation exists between the two objects.
• If a Person is legally accountable responsible for a NewsItem, then a accountablePerson relation exists between the two objects.

The difference between an Organization that is the provider of a NewsItem and an Organization that is the sourceOrganization for a NewsItem may be confusing, so lets consider an example. Suppose The Boston Globe writes a general interest article about an impending snowstorm and the Associated Press distributes the article. Then this article's sourceOrganization is "Boston Globe" but its provider is "The Associated Press."

Like NewsItem objects, UserComments objects may be associated with a creator, but this creator may only be of type Person

The Table Below summarizes all class relations in rNews.