Production and multi-channel distribution of news

News production is characterised by complex and dynamic workflows as it is important to produce and distribute news as soon as possible and in an audiovisual quality as good as possible. In this paper, we present news production as it has been implemented at the Flemish Radio and Television (Vlaamse radio en televisie, VRT). Driven by the dynamic nature of news content, the VRT news department is optimized for short cycle times and characterised by a highly parallel production process, i.e. product engineering (news bulletin composition or “organise” and story-editing or “construct message”), various material procurement (“create media asset”) processes, mastering (“publish”), and the distribution processes largely run in parallel. The formal expression of news operations in terms of canonical processes has allowed us to disambiguate the overall process, and it will help us developing meaningful and reusable interfaces.