'Stars and Stripes' Buys Atex Content Mangement System

By: E&P Staff Stars and Stripes and its worldwide news locations have contracted for the Atex Content Management System. The daily published for the U.S. military, Department of Defense civilians, contractors, and their families, will host a centralized system in Washington, D.C., from which pages for five geographical editions are generated.

Using Adobe InDesign and InCopy, the system's latest release will support approximately 132 users worldwide. Implementation is under way and targeted for completion next March. The system enables PDF pge output to nine printing sites, including locations in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. A key component, the Atex Web Content Management solution powered by Ektron's CMS400.NET, facilitates the information flow to the Web site and from the Web site into the print publication system, according to Atex.

"Being able to keep track of all our editions, move stories between editions, track everything, and integrate it all with our Web site and archiving were key to our decision to select Atex," Executive Editor Robb Grindstaff said in a statement.

The Content Management Web client will be used by remote staffers supporting regional overseas offices, in subordinate bureaus to submit news and photographs, and by Washington bureau reporters covering the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.

"Stars and Stripes editors and content managers will be able to take advantage of multiple delivery channels, including print, online, e-mail, sms messaging, videocasts and podcasts to reach the maximum number of readers," Atex Chief Integration Officer Peter Marsh said in a statement.

The integrated solution's Web services allow text, audio, video, and graphical content to move easily between the systems, along with its associated metadata, providing tools to make the most of text and images for the Web, and to use online data such as blog posts, comments, survey forms and poll data across different media.

Operating free of government control and censorship, Stars and Stripes has been published in Europe since 1942, where readers number approximately 80,000, and since 1945 in the Pacific, where it serves about 60,000 readers.