AP Classification Metadata

AP News Taxonomy

AP News Taxonomy is a comprehensive classification system for English-language news content that includes standardized subjects, geographic locations, people, organizations and publicly traded companies.

AP Classification system automatically enriches news content with all the relevant metadata tags from the News Taxonomy.

• Accurate and relevant metadata tags. AP Classification of news content goes well beyond mere text extraction; it uses human-created semantic rules to understand the content and accurately identify pertinent concepts and topics. AP's rules use contextual information to disambiguate concepts; for example, an article about Portland, Oregon will receive the 'Portland, Oregon' tag and not the 'Portland, Maine' tag, even if Oregon is not mentioned in the text.

• Frequent, timely metadata updates. AP metadata is continuously updated to capture the latest news and the biggest newsmakers. Breaking news events and related entities are added as the event unfolds, so news content is tagged, searchable and can be aggregated programmatically by breaking news event; for example, Fort McMurray wildfire. Even before the event tag is added, you can easily identify breaking news content by the Subject and Geography terms - Wildfires and Alberta in this example.

AP Subject

AP Subject (over 4,200 terms) covers a wide variety of topics from broad categories like Crime to specific concepts like Illegal Firearms, breaking news events like Hurricane Matthew 2016 and recurring events like Academy Awards.

For more information, see a complete list of AP Subject terms.

AP Geography

AP Geography (over 2,500 terms) contains geographic place names from continents, world regions and countries to major world cities and a large number of US cities and towns.

For more information, see a complete list of AP Geography terms.

Available properties include:

• Location type (generic type label such as "City," "Country" or "Region")
• Latitude and Longitude (centroid coordinates)

Location Type

AP Person

AP Person (over 142,000 terms) covers individual newsmakers at the global and US national level, including celebrities, politicians, sports figures, business leaders, royalty and more.

Available properties include:

• Person type (main category for each named individual).
• Team (for team athletes and coaches only). The team(s) on which an athlete plays. The team values and codes are available as part of the list of AP Organization terms.
• Associated event (only for athletes and coaches participating in Olympic games or FIFA World Cup). Represents a relationship between a person and a current event, typically, the person's participation in or some significant contribution to the event; for example, a player's participation in 2018 FIFA World Cup. For more information, see Associated Event Name and Code Examples.

Person Type

AP Person main categories for named individuals include:

• ARCHITECT
• ARTIST
• AUTHOR
• BUSINESS_LEADER (company executives and other newsmakers in the business world)
• ENTERTAINMENT_FIGURE (famous performers, models, directors and media personalities)
  • MOVIE_ACTOR
  • CELEBRITY_CHEF
  • COMEDIAN
  • DANCER
  • DIRECTOR
  • MISC_ENTERTAINER (famous people in arts or entertainment who do not fit into another category, such as magicians or film producers)
  • FASHION_DESIGNER
  • TV_PERSONALITY (people known mainly for non-acting, non-journalistic roles on a television program; for example, talk show hosts, reality contestants and contest judges; radio personalities)
  • MODEL
  • MUSICIAN
• GOVERNMENT_FIGURE (people in non-policy-making leadership roles in government, such as judges, law enforcement officials, military officers and diplomats)
• JOURNALIST
• NEWSMAKER (newsmaking people who do not fit into other categories, such as scientists, lawyers, religious leaders, activists, academics, military personnel, criminals, crime victims and people who make news because of their relationship to a famous person)
• POLITICIAN (people in policy-making or decision-making roles in the government of a geopolitical entity, such as senators, congress people, governors and presidents)
• ROYALTY
• SPORTS_FIGURE (athletes participating in professional or collegiate sports, or in major amateur events; sports managers, coaches and administrators)
  • PROFESSIONAL_ATHLETE
  • COACH
  • COLLEGE_ATHLETE
  • SPORTS_MANAGEMENT

Associated Event Name and Code Examples

For more information on the AssociatedEvent property, please refer to:

• AP Summer Olympics Metadata Reference Guide
• AP Winter Olympics Metadata Reference Guide
• World Cup Metadata Guide

AP Organization

AP Organization (over 2,500 terms) includes government and non-profit organizations, sports teams, colleges, universities, political groups, cultural and professional organizations.

For more information, see a complete list of AP Organization terms.

AP Company

AP Company (over 65,500 terms) covers public companies with shares traded on the major global and American stock exchanges. For non-U.S. companies that trade on more than one exchange, domestic exchange tickers and ADRs (American Depository Shares) are provided.

Available properties include:

• Ticker. Ticker symbol for a security (one or more per company).
• Exchange. Code for the stock exchange the security is traded on (one or more per company).
• Instrument. Combination of the exchange and ticker, separated by a colon (one or more per company).
• Industries. One or more industries related to the company. The AP Industry values and codes are available as part of the list of AP Subject terms.

Stock Exchange Codes

AP Event

Names of planned events; for example:

• Sports events, such as NFL football games.
• Developing news events, such as The Latest, AP's special editorial representation of developing news stories. For more information, see The Latest - Developing Stories.

Additional Classification Metadata

Profile (ItemContentType)

The logical editorial type of the content item, used primarily for text and audio. Provides a processing hint to applications that allows them to quickly determine the content type for inclusion or exclusion in product groups or automated processes.

Text

• Advisory. Scheduled or ad-hoc messages not for publication. Used for scheduled digests and coverage advisories, as well as package advisories and coverage plans tied to specific planned or breaking news events.
• Agate. Statistical data generally, although not exclusively, used for sports, financial markets and economic data.
• Analysis. Stories specifically headlined "AP News Analysis" with rules already established by News.
• Blog. Content that is presented as a web log, with content created by one or more people, usually maintained by one person. May provide commentary or news on a particular subject or may function as a more personal online diary.
• Column. A regular feature written by the same person or a substitute about a specific subject or topic, with or without an opinion included.
• Daybook. A list of upcoming events that the AP may not necessarily be covering. Not for publication.
• Feature. Stories that are NOT focused on a breaking news angle, but are a feature, workup or trend story. It can include stories that have an incidental spot angle, but whose overall focus is big-picture. Also used for a biography of a person or a company, or a feature story focused on one person, as well as for archival text, such as the AP Was There series.
• ExtendedHeadlinePackage. Long headlines with links to full text of the top stories, as chosen by editors in a particular category.
• Fixture. An item filed with daily, weekly or monthly regularity (for example, Farm Scene). Excludes "Columns."
• Game Story. Sports stories about a particular game or sporting event.
• HeadlinePackage. Short headlines with links to full text of the top stories, as chosen by editors in a particular category.
• Investigative Enterprise. Major investigative work or enterprise journalism. This includes AP Exclusives or other such stories that others are not reporting, even if there is no immediate spot angle.
• List. A series of short points or items such as Today in History or 10 Things to Know series.
• Lookahead. A story previewing an upcoming, scheduled event.
• NewsBrief. The first two paragraphs and links to full text and associated pictures of the top stories, as chosen by editors in a particular category.
• Obituary. A spot story about the death of a person.
• Opinion. A point of view, advice, evaluation or judgment expressed by an editor, journalist or a subject-matter expert. Used for editorial roundups.
• PhotoGallery. A text file aggregating and describing a collection of photos. Includes photo essays.
• Press Release. A text or multi-media item providing non-journalistic information to the news media from a PR, government or corporate organization.
• Review. A review of a book, play, concert or other cultural event.
• Running. An item that reports on a developing story with a series of chronological updates. Used for The Latest and other ongoing events, such as sports matches or tournaments.
• Sports Scores. An item containing in-progress or end of game scoring statistical information.
• Spot Development. A report on an event or news item that happened today, or that we are learning about today that needs to be reported immediately.
• Transcript/Verbatim. Transcripts or excerpts.
• Weather Forecast. A prediction of future weather.

Audio

• Actuality. An audio recording of a newsmaker talking, also known as a sound bite.
• Music. An audio recording of music only.
• Question and Answer Session. An audio recording of an interview, typically between a producer and a correspondent or stringer, about stories they are covering.
• Raw Sound. An audio recording of nonverbal sounds, also known as "natural sound," "ambient sound," or "production sound."
• Response to a Question. An audio recording of a newsmaker responding to a question.
• Scener. An audio correspondent report recorded at the scene of a news event. The reporter does the report with the sounds of the event audible in the background.
• Voicer. An audio correspondent report in which you hear only the voice of the correspondent.
• Wrap. An audio correspondent report that incorporates the voices of both correspondent and newsmaker. Generally, the reporter introduces the newsmaker, the newsmaker says a few words, and the reporter then finishes out the story.

Fixture

Named sets of regularly occurring content or features with a predictable focus; for example, "Financial Impact," "Film Reviews," "10 Things to Know," "Sports Briefs." For more information, see a complete list of AP Fixtures.

AP Category Code

AP category codes are applied to text, pictures, graphics and video.

English-Language Text Stories

AP Category Codes for International Text

Spanish Service

Dutch Service

Arabic Service

AP Category Codes for Pictures and Graphics

AP Category Codes for Video

AP Supplemental Category

AP supplemental category codes are applied to pictures and graphics.

Urgency

The editorial urgency assigned to the content:

• urgency. The editorial urgency of the content from 1 to 8. 1 represents the highest urgency, 8 the lowest.

• editorialpriority. The human-readable urgency value assigned to the content. Because usage is deprecated, systems must rely on the "urgency" value for processing. The values of the "urgency" and "editorialpriority" properties correspond as follows: