User:Media Maven/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT) is a U.S.-based news agency. A 50/50 joint venture between The McClatchy Co. and the Tribune Co., MCT was founded in 1973 by Knight Newspapers and the Tribune Co. McClatchy acquired half ownership with its purchase of Knight Ridder in 2006.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services provides news stories, feature articles, photos, graphics, illustrations, caricatures, themed content packages and paginated products. With contributions from hundreds of newspapers in the United States and abroad and material produced by its own staff, MCT supplies content to 1,200 media clients worldwide. MCT is also a major provider of content to online information services.

MCT also enhances its content with topic, geography and company data –- all powered by a news-centric ontology built and refined daily by MCT editors. This service, MCT SmartContent, sells targeted subsets of articles to a variety of clients.

The MCT products are marketed worldwide by Tribune Media Services, the content-licensing unit of the Tribune Co.

Early history: Partnership
MCT began as the Knight News Wire in 1973. Based at the Detroit Free Press, the Knight News Wire was established, so that newspapers in the Knight and Tribune Co. groups could share stories. At that time, Knight Newspapers owned prominent dailies such as The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Charlotte Observer, while Tribune Company counted among its publications the Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and South Forida Sun-Sentinel. The Knight News Wire expanded beyond Knight and Tribune newspapers on July 3, 1973. At that time, the news-share service counted 25 subscribers. In 1974, Knight Newspapers and Ridder Publications merged to form Knight-Ridder Inc., and was for a brief period the largest newspaper company in the United States. The Knight News Wire moved to Washington, D.C., in 1977, where the newsgathering and processing operations were located on the seventh floor of the National Press Building, two blocks from the White House.

With the foundation for sharing news stories established, alliances then developed in the areas of news graphics and photos. Knight-Ridder founded its Graphics Network at its corporate offices in Miami in 1985. This unit moved to Washington, D.C., in 1986. In 1988, Knight-Ridder Graphics merged with both the Chicago Tribune graphic service and Infographics, a service purchased from King Features, to form the Knight-Ridder/Tribune Graphics Network and become part of the joint venture that had begun with the Knight News Wire. The next unit to develop was the Photo Service, which launched in 1988. Delivered via satellite broadcast to contributors and clients around the country, the Photo Service quickly grew into the second-largest daily provider of news pictures in the U.S.

Expansion
In the next two decades, the venture, which then shared news stories and photos, and produced newspaper graphics and photos, grew rapidly and at some point adopted the name KRT News Service. From 1984 to 1990, several other newspapers became contributors to the venture. These newspapers included The Dallas Morning News, The Seattle Times and The Orange County Register.

In 1990, News in Motion (NIM) was launched as an offshoot of KRT Graphics and then became a separate department. NIM created daily breaking news animations for television and the Web. Over time, however, NIM failed to produce enough profit, and KRT was forced to shut down the unit at the end of 2004. In 1992, KRT launched Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News (KRTB), now Regional News. KRTB aimed at the market of corporations and businesses seeking the latest information from their field. It was the first KRT service not targeted primarily at newspapers or broadcast news outlets.

MCT re-distributes news stories all over the globe. Likewise, publications all over the world use graphics and photos produced by MCT. For almost 20 years, MCT – then KRT – also operated offices in Europe. KRT Graphics opened an office in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1994, to produce graphics for international newspaper clients. This was the birth of KRT Europe. At its zenith, KRT Europe had staff in Denmark, Germany and Sweden, with translators in several other countries, including Norway and Poland. KRT Europe continued until December 2009, when MCT, feeling the pressures facing all sides of the newspaper industry, was forced to cut the operation as a cost-saving measure.

An important content addition and new technology
In the 21st century, two developments brought big changes at MCT. After McClatchy Co. acquired Knight Ridder in 2006, the service became McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, or MCT. And in 2010, The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service (LATWP) dissolved, and the Los Angeles Times joined MCT as a content provider.

Other developments included the addition of MCT Campus, a college news service that joined the company as KRT Campus in 2001, when KRT took over a Tribune Media Services product known as TMS Campus. MCT Campus moves MCT stories and visuals to hundreds of college newspapers across the country. In 2006, MCT Business News expanded from re-distribution of business news stories into a new business, MCT Regional News (MCTR), which created regional feeds of stories from all newspaper sections, marketed as an alternative for newspapers who could no longer afford to pay for expensive state and national copy from AP. MCTR has grown further and now aggregates approximately 2 million stories and blogs from more than 550 English-language news producers in the U.S. and other countries. In 2010, MCT developed SmartContent. SmartContent enhances content from all MCT news services with topic, geography and company data -- enabled by its development of a news-centric ontology. Businesses, organizations and individuals can purchase daily feeds of articles that are curated to their interests. MCT also licenses use of the ontology.