Reuters Connect Partner Metadata Guide

Slugs, Topic Codes and Restrictions, when correctly applied, help to align partner content to platform navigation rules (e.g. filters), harmonize content restriction messaging and increase partner content discoverability and therefore usage on the platform.

Reuters Connect partners contribute content through two mechanisms:

  1. Feed ingestion
  2. Web-form contributions

For feed ingestion, slugs will be determined during the integration phase.

For the purposes of this document we will provide some forward guidance on how to select slugs when contributing through the webform. In this case contributors are required to add a slug to each uploaded asset. Before trying to determine your own slug, webform users should check if the event you are contributing content for is also being covered by Reuters. You should use the Reuters Connect Planning tool to try and align the contributed assets’ slug to ours.

e.g: If a contributor is uploading London Fashion week content, go to ‘Planning’, use the ‘Filter’ and select ‘All Available’ under ‘Date’, then search for either ‘London’ and/or ‘Fashion’ to see if there is planned coverage.

Slugs, Slugging Rules and Content contribution

For Sports content, slug rules are slightly different, click here to access the Sports Event Slugs page.

Slugs are a Reuters editorial mechanism used to standardize content by event. They are combinations of 2 or 3 words describing a news event – a string of keywords. Reuters editorial use basic journalistic questions to determine the correct keywords, which occasionally change as news events unfold, mostly focused on answering three key questions:

  • Where: the geography of the news event

  • Who: the entity (person, company, industry) the news event covers

  • What: the news event or subject more specifically

In most cases Reuters editorial try to answer these questions in the above order, however since not all news events are straightforward (see examples below) the guiding principle is to be as clear as possible in trying to answer the above questions but most importantly remain consistent once a slug is determined. To ensure consistency, slugs follow a specific two-part structure:

  • Packaging Slug: A packaging slug should consist of at least two, but no more than two, words that include a geography, a company or industry sector or personal name (particularly with respect to people recognized by an international readership), or an event or subject category. It is separated by a dash and ends with a forward slash. Once established this should remain the same for the duration of the news event coverage:

    e.g 1 Geography-Subject: BRITAIN-ROYALS/
    e.g 2 Company-Event: FACEBOOK-RESULTS/
    e.g 3 Subject: GLOBAL-CLIMATECHANGE/

  • Wild Slug: A wild slug is a third and final keyword added after the forward slash to provide additional detail regarding an asset. It is particularly useful for long-standing packaging slugs, or news events with multiple side-stories.

    e.g 1 Geography-Subject: BRITAIN-ROYALS/WEDDING
    e.g 2 Company-Event: FACEBOOK-RESULTS/STOCK
    e.g 3 Subject: GLOBAL-CLIMATECHANGE/ECONOMY

Consistency is particularly relevant for Reuters Connect, as all assets that follow the same packaging slug can be automatically clustered on the front-end.

Topic Codes

Topic codes have been revised in H1 2018, these underpin the Category filters in Connect to simplify the UI and try to aggregate content at the highest level of the Reuters Classification Schema. The below table simplifies the ingestion rules that will guide content to the appropriate filter.

FilterSub-filterTopic CodesTopic Code Definition
Business & Finance* N/A MCE Economic News
Sports (+) Sport-specific (slug driven) SPO Sport
News (+) Health HEA Health / Medicine
Politics POL Government / Politics
Technology ITECH Information Technologies / Computer Sciences
TECH Technology
Science SCI Science
Environment ENV Environment
*no sub-filter for these topics, assets flow straight into News CWP Conflicts / War / Peace
DIS Disasters / Accidents
GEN General News
REL Religion / Belief
SOCI Society / Social News
CLJ Crime / Law / Justice
Entertainment & Leisure (+) Fashion FASH Fashion
Oddly ODD Human Interest / Brights / Odd News
Lifestyle LIF Lifestyle
*no sub-filter for these topics, assets flow straight into Entertainment & Leisure ENT Arts / Culture / Entertainment
PRO Personalities / People
Restrictions

Restrictions should adhere to the Reuters Restrictions Guide. This guide is applicable to all multimedia content – pictures, graphics and video – and wherever possible partners restrictions should be transformed to conform with our guide.

For partner content contributed through feeds, these will be determined during the integration process.

Appendix

Business & Finance Topic Codes that could also be applied:

FilterTopic CodeTopic Code Definition
Business & Finance AUTBAT Automotive Batteries
BATUPS Batteries
BMAT Basic Materials
CMPNY Company News
COM Commodities Markets
CYCS Cyclical Consumer Goods
DBT Debt Markets
DRV Derivatives
ENER Energy
ETPS Exchange Traded Products
FINS Financials
FINTEC Financial Technology
FRX FX Markets
FUND Fund
HECA Healthcare
INDS Industrials
ISLF Islamic Finance
LUX Luxury Goods
MCE Economic News
MIN Mining
MMT Money Markets
NCYC Non Cyclical Consumer Goods
PINV Personal Investing
PRECAL All precious Metals
REAM Real Estate Markets
SBIZ Sports Business
SHOPAL All Retails
STX Equities Markets
TCOM Telecommunications
TMT Technology / Media / Telecoms
UTIL Utilities
JOB Workforce