P R E S S     R E L E A S E

European Content Empowers Global News Tracking Through Dialog®NewsRoom

LONDON (28 July 2003) — Dialog, a Thomson (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, said today that the growing roster of non-English language European content available through its acclaimed Dialog®NewsRoom online service empowers global tracking of local and regional news and analysis.

Dialog NewsRoom, launched in 2002, is a comprehensive collection of current news reports from around the world. The service offers access to more than 7,500 sources, including broadcast transcripts, newspapers, periodicals, newswires, trade and scholarly journals, and other sources, drawn from nearly 80 countries in English and 11 other languages.

“We’ve set out to make Dialog NewsRoom the best online tool for tracking news from around the world,” said Viji Krishnan, Dialog vice president of content development. “Dialog NewsRoom offers a rare combination of big-picture reporting from major international news providers along with the grassroots coverage from local and regional sources. Adding non-English language content from across Europe and beyond allows users to track the news important to them as it is first reported locally, and to get a different perspective on international events and trends.”

Diversity of Sources

European content available through Dialog NewsRoom represents a range of the region’s languages and reporting. Examples of non-English language European content include:

• Continuous feeds from many of Europe’s leading newsgathering agencies, such as Agence France-Presse (France) and EFE News Service (Spain).
  
  
• Articles and reports from specialized reporting services, including Publicaciones Alimarket, S.A. (Spain), a leading provider of business-to-business publications; and FINECON® (Austria), a German-language specialist knowledge base covering financial markets and world economies.
  
  
• Leading national newspapers, such as El País (Spain), Corriere della Sera (Italy), Kauppalehti (Finland), Le Monde (France) and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany).
  
  
• Highly focused trade publications serving targeted audiences. One example: titles from German publisher Verlagsgruppe Deutscher Fachverlag, including Lebensmittel Zeitung, Europe’s premier source of information on food production and distribution.
  
  
• Translated versions of editorial materials produced by English-language news organizations for their non-English reading audiences. Examples range from well-known global publications, such as the German edition of Fortune magazine to more specialized publications, such as the German- language edition of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin. Another example is the English-language International Herald Tribune, based in Paris and distributed globally, which often supplies translated versions of its articles for publication elsewhere, such as in Spain’s El País.

Krishnan noted that many of the European sources available through Dialog NewsRoom report on events and trends worldwide, offering perspectives often not featured in English-language reporting.

“The great advantage of Dialog NewsRoom is that so many different categories of news sources reside together in one database,” said Krishnan. “Users can search not just for a specific news article or broadcast report, but also by broad topics and issues. And the global reporting that their searches produce would be almost impossible to generate without simultaneous searching of such a robust collection of European sources.”

Dialog NewsRoom is available as a Web-accessible, subscription-based service (www.dialognewsroom.com) and as a component of other Dialog-branded platforms, including Dialog®, Dialog DataStar™, Dialog NewsEdge and Dialog Profound®.

Corporations and other organisations may subscribe to Dialog NewsRoom for enterprise-wide use through monthly fixed subscriptions for unlimited use based on the number of users accessing the database within the organisation.

- Ends -

About Dialog and The Thomson Corporation
Dialog, a pioneer in developing the technology behind electronic information retrieval, is the world leader in providing online-based information services to organisations seeking competitive advantages in such fields as business, science, engineering, finance and law.

Today, the online services provided by Dialog — offered through the Dialog®, Dialog Profound®, Dialog DataStar™, NewsEdge and Intelligence Data brands — give users the ability to precisely retrieve data from more than 1.4 billion unique records, accessible via the Internet or through delivery to enterprise intranets. Searchable content includes articles and reports from thousands of real-time news feeds, newspapers, broadcast transcripts and trade publications, plus research reports and analyst notes providing support for financial decision-making, as well as in-depth repositories of scientific and technical data, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property data. Information professionals and end-users at business, professional and government organisations in more than 100 countries prize Dialog services for their depth and breadth of content, precision searching and speed.

Based in Cary, N.C., USA, Dialog has operations in 31 other countries. Dialog (www.dialog.com) is a business of The Thomson Corporation (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC). With 2002 revenues of US$7.8 billion, Thomson (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers.

All designated trademarks used herein are the property of The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries. Registered marks are registered by The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Media contacts

top