Construction of News Database in China

Author: Min Dahong, the Institute of Journalism and Communication, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China.

Li Yankui, Beijing Daily Group, Beijing, China.

China has made a great progress in news database, not only in quantity and scale, but also in quality and level, after twenty years hard work by the press (including newspaper, periodical, radio, TV and news agency).

There are many specific requirements of news database, such as: strong timeliness and large numbers of information, in great deal of users’ search demands, share and inter-hunt information between subsystem.

Classified by content, the news database can be separated into four groups: full-text retrieval database, picture database, multimedia database, historical materials database; by working quality, there are pre-edit manuscript database, news clues database, finished product database, client relative database, classified advertising database. Otherwise, more and more traditional mass media open their websites to provide retrieval service for the public. At the same time, on-line database is steadily increased.

In China newspapering, the application of news database technology is going deeply, developed full-text retrieval technology into whole-lifecycle content management technology, its coverage from collect, create, transmit to analyze of the content. The function of automatic classification, clustering, correlative analysis, abstract, duplicates-removing and similar search have been achieved. The text mining technology has become an industry and operative technology. These results become a strong base for intellectualized and individuated information management, and accelerate technology of knowledge management and content management integrating.

In the radio and television field of China, the news database was changed into media digital asset management system(DAMS), so stored and reused media digital asset become true, the user’ s two core requests, management and application, were satisfied. Mass media capitalists can create, mine, store, manage, apply and publish all kinds of information by DAMS. The DAMS can use all kinds of storage media, including hard-disk, large scale tape base and DVD storage system etc. It sets up a HSM system based SAN, so the function of download/upload, edit, record, retrieval, circulation, click-on-demand and statistics was merged together. The DAMS provide perfect retrieval services, text, stream media, key frame sequence and broadcast quality pictures can be searched and explored freely.

With the development of news database technology, its application platform can worked well in many different database, such as: Oracle、DB2、MS SQL Server and Sybase, also SAN、NAS and DAS storage formats are compatible, hierarchical-storage system can work, too. Data stream tape base and CD database can support different standards storage media, even if they were made by different companies. The news database system provide online database management, audio and video files can be classified and archived automatically. The storage of the system can be unlimited extend by the off-line tapes management, and the capability of online storage can linear increase.

In China, the latest result of this field is two national technology standards about Chinese news information were enacted for the first time. That is Chinese news markup language（CNML）and Chinese-language news classification and code. Standardization Administration of China has issued GB/T20092-2006 and GB/T20093-2006 for these two standards, and it was executed from 1st, May, 2006. Chinese news markup language（CNML） is based XML, referring the international standards, and embodying Chinese characteristics. What’s more, it takes characters of compatibility, simplification, flexibility, and easily-extend. Chinese-language news classification and code is the basic resource for metadata and controlled vocabulary dictionary. These two standards are not only independent but also interdependent. The well established Chinese news technology standards, its coverage is nationwide, even all region of Chinese, guarantee that a mass of Chinese news can be organized, managed, stored and published validly. These standards ensure that Chinese news information can be shared and communicated not only between Chinese media, but also in a wider range.

With the construction of information systems going more popular and deeper, Chinese journalism has realized digitization and networking, and it has accumulated abundant digital assets. Now conformity and reuse the digital assets are a general requirement for journalism. Growing in the dog-eat-dog environment, the core of the journalism is database. Because in fact journalism is an industry of content, database is an effective tool for content integrated and increased in value.

This article describes an all-around analysis of the development of news database in China, and explores several representative cases: Xinhua News Agency (multimedia database), CCTV, Beijing Daily Group. The author evaluates the availability and effect of Chinese news technology standards, and makes suggestions to the journalism database, some valuable advice were given to promote news database construction.

Key Word: Database, Digital, Information technology, Journalism