CONTENTS:
ČTK launches new multimedia editorial system
ČTK launches Slovak language services
Neris creates a joint Internet project with Czech Television
News from the ČTK Photographic department
Improving and accelerating the photo service
Seminar on working with the ČTK service
ČTK Golden Pen
We recommend the exhibition "Golden Age of Media"
CTK Newsletter in PDF format
ČTK launches new multimedia editorial system
Programmers from ČTK.
This year will be exceptionally busy
for the Czech News Agency as three
major international sports events
will be accompanied by elections in
the Czech Republic to the Chamber
of Deputies, the Senate and local
elections as well as many other
events that are not yet in our lists
of expected events. For ČTK, these
events are even more important as
most of them will be processed by
reporters in a new multimedia editorial
system.
In any journalistic organisation, this
system fulfils the role of the muscles,
arteries and bones, all in one. It offers
reporters the necessary technical stability,
coordinates information, directs
and plans processes, and connects all
reporters and editors as well as computers,
telephones, digital cameras, tape
recorders, cameras. The products of all
these elements come together to create
an invisible network of communication
channels. The system transforms the at times chaotic and hectic activity and the
hundreds and thousands of various texts,
sound bytes, graphs, tables and images
into an organised and effective network
that results in news service to the media.
A press agency is a factory turning out
news reports and its schedule is regulated
by the automatic processing of information,
careful planning of news events and
by the ability to flexibly improvise. All
this puts great pressure on the editorial
system. If its creators wanted to really
put it through its paces, then they could
not have picked a better year.
Compared to its predecessor, the new
system is prepared to handle and process
any piece of news in any form: text, sound
bytes, photographs, news videos, sports
tables and graphs. These news “objects”
can be then connected depending on the
themes they are related to. The agency’s
clients, such as newspapers, magazines,
television and radio stations, as well as
web-based media, outdoor information
panels and mobile telecommunication
network operators, then receive a complete
package of news and information
which they can use for a wide range of
needs. All they need to do is pick and
choose what to use.
The new editorial system, tailored exactly
to the agency’s needs, also brings
increased comfort to the agency’s staff.
Besides the possibility to immediately
consult a number of dictionaries and
encyclopaedias, reporters and editors
will also have access to archived photographs,
the CTK Infobank or the Internet.
The new system also places a lot of
emphasis on working with the database
of upcoming events.
The multimedia editorial system enables processing of all types of news that ČTK offers.
The new editorial system was developed by a team of ČTK programmers in cooperation
with Exprit s.r.o. The system was
designed according to the agency’s needs
and strategic goals. Its development lasted
almost three years.
With the launch of the new system, ČTK
joins a small group of advanced European
agencies that are able to create their news
in a multimedia environment and offer
them in formats that meet international
standards. It will bring advantages not
only to the agency’s reporters, but also its
clients.
If you have any questions about changes
to the agency’s services in connection
with the implementation of the new
editorial system, please send them to
mrs@mail.ctk.cz and we will be happy to
answer them.
ČTK launches Slovak language services
The Czech News Agency is also active on the Slovak information
market. Currently, ČTK has more than thirty clients in Slovakia,
including national television stations, radio stations, newspapers,
and other media outlets and state institutions. Until now, ČTK has
provided services to them only in Czech and sometimes English.
At the end of the fi rst quarter of this year, ČTK began publishing
a service that, in addition to the already broad information,
includes information from Slovakia in Slovak. ČTK has slightly
strengthened its Slovak desk. A second publishing centre was
established in Bratislava and new regional branches in Žilina
and Banská Bystrica were opened. Another regional branch is in
Košice. Currently, the agency employs 15 reporters and photographers
in Slovakia. Their goal is to provide high quality news
from the most important political, economic and even occasional
sporting events in Slovakia. This service will be supplemented
by complex thematic materials. We estimate that the service will
publish between seven to eight thousand news pieces a year. The
service is conceived for expansion if clients desire so.
The Prague headquarters will translate the most interesting information
into Czech and distribute it according to the appropriate
services.
Neris creates a joint Internet project with Czech Television
Traditionally, not only is ČTK swamped
during major sporting events, but so is its
subsidiary Neris. In cooperation with Czech
Television, Neris is planning three large
web-based projects for this year. The fi rst,
www.zoh.cz, was launched at the beginning
of February to coincide with the beginning of
the Winter Olympics. Visitors not only have
access to information about the games and
up to date scores and results from the site,
but also practically everything that the two
large media can offer from the Olympics.
www.zoh.cz screenshot
Similar projects are planned by Neris and
Czech Television for the Ice Hockey World
Championships and the World Cup. The Internet
sports portals that the two organisations
have created together since 2001 are
always very successful not only with users,
but also with advertisers.
News from the ČTK Photographic department
The Photographic department at ČTK
will undergo a series of changes
during 2006, the goal of which is to
expand and improve the services offered
to clients.
AP Photo Service
A great advantage for international news is the
exclusive representation of The Associated
Press (AP) in the Czech Republic. Their photographs,
which have won 29 Pulitzer Prizes,
need no introduction. The current general AP
service publishes more than 1,500 photographs
daily from around the world covering the
latest news from politics, economics, sports
and show business.
Calista Flockhart, alias Ally McBeal, with her boyfriend Harisson Ford.
German speed skater Anni Friesinger.
A Toy Fair in Nuremberg.
We offer a selection of about 150 photographs
as part of the daily ČTK Photo news. You
can fi nd the full AP service of about 1,500
photographs in the ČTK Photobank. We also
can offer access to the AP central photo bank
in New York with more than two million photographs
online and more than ten million in
the archives.
ABACA Photographs
Another old-new agency that we represent
exclusively in the Czech Republic is the
French ABACA agency. These paparazzi
photographs from the lives of the rich and
famous, as well as various curiosities, can
be found in Kaleidoscope, our service for
magazines.
A Renato Palestra fashion show in Rome.
Photo: ABACA.
Broadcasts in English
During February, the international part of the
Photo news service began broadcasting with
original English captions in order to make
them available more quickly for clients.
Digitalisation of the Photo archive
The digitalisation of the ČTK Photo archive
will continue throughout this year. The
costs associated with accelerating the transfer
should in part be covered by the increase
in prices for using extremely valuable
historical photographs. Photographs with
individual prices will be clearly marked.
Services for clients
A new post of marketing manager has been
created in the offi ce and it has been fi lled
by Zuzana Musilová, who worked for AFP.
She will foster greater communication
about client needs and new services as well
as offer new and more advantageous forms
of purchasing the service’s products. You
can contact her at musilova@mail.ctk.cz
Singer Liam Gallagher and the rock group Oasis. Photo: KEYSTONE. The ČTK Photobank also offers a selection of photographs from other major agencies such as EMPICS, DPA or LEHTIKUVA.
We are preparing
Besides changes to content, we are also
planning new graphics for our Photobank,
which will improve orientation and easier
searching for photographs.
We hope that all the changes mentioned
above will increase our clients’ satisfaction
using the photo news service or the Photobank.
Improving and accelerating the photo service
During the Winter Olympics, ČTK has greatly increased the
capa-city of its satellite broadcast channel.
This allows us to process a greater number of photographs from
this event in an improved quality and in a shorter time.
We will proceed similarly during the FIFA World Cup this
summer.
Seminar on working with the ČTK service
Our clients are welcome to attend a seminar
on working with the ČTK service, which
will take place on 27.3. at 10:00 a.m. and on
29.3. at 3:00 p.m. at the ČTK headquarters,
Opletalova 5/7, Prague 1.
Besides the traditional user seminar, we will be happy to answer
any questions on changes in ČTK services after the launch of the
new multimedia editorial system at the beginning of March.
Please send your applications to docekalova@mail.ctk.cz.
ČTK Golden Pen
The Editor-in-Chief of all ČTK text news awarded the 11th annual
Golden Pen awards for excellence in journalism. Twelve awards
in total were given out for 2005. The top prize was awarded to
Berlin correspondent Denisa Svobodníková for the speed, clarity
and simplicity of her dispatches about the complicated political
and economic situation in Germany and directing sports editor
Radomír Novák for his years of professional journalistic work
and for his exceptional understanding of sporting events. ČTK
Technical director Jan Kodera was awarded a special “Order of
the Golden Mouse” award for his accommodation and understanding
of the needs of journalists.
ČTK employs almost 220 active editors and reporters who work
in the Prague headquarters and in branch offi ces. The agency has
offi ces in 16 locations across the Czech Republic and in nine
foreign countries.
We recommend the exhibition "Golden Age of Media"
ČTK is the media sponsor of the “Golden Age of Media“ exhibition,
which is open until March 31, 2006 in the National Museum
in Prague. ČTK provided a series of unique archived images
and a panel presenting ČTK. The exhibition also includes a presentation
of ČTK’s news, which is shown in the form of headlines
above the main entrance
to the gallery.
Ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone of the ČTK building in Opletalova street (at the time Lutzow street)
in Prague in 1928.
The exhibition also presents
the most important journalists
in Czech society up to 1938.
Among the fi fty portraits of
such journalists as Karel Čapek
or Karel Poláček, one can
also fi nd the second director
of ČTK, Emil Čermák, who
is considered to be the actual
founding father of our organisation.
Emil Čermák was at the head
of ČTK between 1920 and
1930. His abilities helped
build ČTK into a modern
press agency in the 1920s.
Emil Čermák was exceptionally
well-educated and spoke
seven languages. He spent many years
in the Balkans as a correspondent for
Reuter. Furthermore, he was friends
with fi rst Czechoslovak President
T. G. Masaryk, who invited him to
Prague to help found the agency.
CTK Newsletter No. 8/2006