Thomson Reuters Contributes OpenCalais Service to DocumentCloud Initiative

Joins Forces with Two Dozen World-Leading Publishers and ProPublica

to Support Public Access to News Reporters’ Original Source Materials

KristaThomas | September 24, 2009

New York, NY – September 24, 2009 – Thomson Reuters today announced that it has joined forces with some two dozen world-leading publishers and ProPublica on the DocumentCloud initiative. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with this year’s largest grant, DocumentCloud is a unique online resource that will provide public access to news reporters’ original source materials. It will debut in a beta version by the end of this year.

Specifically, Thomson Reuters has agreed to contribute high-volume use of its OpenCalais service to the Document Cloud Initiative. OpenCalais uses natural language processing (NLP) to “read” a document, instantly identifying and tagging the relevant people, places, companies, facts and events for improved search and navigation. This will make it easy for users to explore connections between newsmakers, corporations and events across documents and across the full collection of source materials.

“By using OpenCalais to tag documents, DocumentCloud will enable journalists, researchers and scholars to find otherwise hidden connections between people, companies and concepts across a body of documents.” said Barak Pridor, CEO, ClearForest, the Thomson Reuters company that produces the OpenCalais service. “DocumentCloud will also enable the public to get the ‘back story’ behind the news and see for themselves the information that reporters use to get at the facts. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for democracy and an important step in the ongoing evolution of citizen journalism.”

DocumentCloud is the brainchild of Scott Klein, editor of online development at ProPublica; Eric Umansky, senior editor of ProPublica; Aron Pilhofer, editor of interactive news technologies for The New York Times and Ben Koski, software engineer in The New York Times’ interactive news technology group. It was inspired by The New York Times’ DocViewer software, which created a searchable database of the more than 11,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s public schedule during her eight years as first lady in the White House.

Other publishers and non-profit organizations that have joined in supporting the DocumentCloud initiative include the ACLU National Security Project, Arizona Republic, The Atlantic, Center for Democracy and Technology / OpenCRS, Centre for Investigative Journalism (City University London), Center for Investigative Reporting / California Watch, Center for Public Integrity, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Gotham Gazette, The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, The National Security Archive, The New York Times, New Yorker, MinnPost, MSNBC, Mother Jones, PBS NewsHour, ProPublica, St. Petersburg Times, Sunlight Foundation, Talking Points Memo, Voice of San Diego, Washington Post and WNYC.

About DocumentCloud
DocumentCloud will be software, a Web site, and a set of open standards that will make original source documents easy to find, share, read and collaborate on, anywhere on the Web. Users will be able to search for documents by date, topic, person, location, etc. and will be able to do "document dives," collaboratively examining large sets of documents. Organizations will be able to do all this while keeping the documents--and readers--on their own sites. Think of it as a card catalog for primary source documents. Visit www.DocumentCloud.org to learn more.

About the OpenCalais Initiative

The OpenCalais initiative supports the interoperability of content and advances Thomson Reuters mission to deliver intelligent information. It offers free metadata generation services, developer tools and an automatic connection to the Linked Data cloud. The free OpenCalais service and open API makes it easy to automate content operations, enhance content, increase audience engagement and extend distribution across the content ecosystem. Visit OpenCalais.com.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. The company combines industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people in 93 countries. For more information, go to ThomsonReuters.com.

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