NEWS CORP./MCI ONLINE VENTURES LAUNCHES FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND, STATE-OF-THE-ART
ONLINE, DIGITAL NEWSROOM

Seasoned Sunday Times and MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour journalists tapped to
spearhead 24-hour, 7-day news production team

Powerful production tools aid creating and filing stories with sound, video
and text for Web-based distribution

NEW YORK, NY, September 5, 1995 -- News Corp./MCI Online Ventures today
announced that it has launched the News Center -- a first-of-its-kind,
state-of-the-art online, digital newsroom designed to deliver innovative,
interactive programming specifically for the online environment. News
Corp./MCI Online Ventures also announced that it has tapped veteran
journalists Jonathan Miller of The London Sunday Times and Lew Silverman
of the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour to head a production team dedicated to
delivering 24-hour/day, 7-day/week news.

Miller, who will serve as editor for News Corp./MCI Online Ventures' News
Center, created the Camden Lock Web site in London -- recognized as a
leading laboratory for digital journalism. Miller is a former assistant
editor, columnist and media editor of The London Sunday Times. Silverman,
who was named managing editor for the News Center, is the former managing
producer of the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Silverman has worked as a senior
journalist for Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and Knight-Ridder
newspapers.

News Corp./MCI Online Ventures also named the following senior editors to
the news production team:

Catherine Woodard, former news editor of Newsday Direct, as senior
editor/news;

Vivienne Walt, most recently a distinguished foreign correspondent for
Newsday, as team leader for producing review and cultural coverage;

Marc Appleman, a former senior sports journalist for Sports Illustrated and
the Los Angeles Times, as senior sports editor;

June Herold, a feature and business writer from the Dayton (Ohio) Daily
News, as business editor;

Don Winslow, formerly online manager, Reuters New Media and a photographer
for Reuters, as picture editor;

Betsy Freeman, a former producer for NBC News and WNET News in New York,
where she covered politics and national affairs, as political editor; and

Sean Elder, a veteran magazine writer and editor, as senior editor for
reviews.

Contributors for the news production team will also include noted
journalists like Linda Ellerbee, who will launch an exclusive interactive
column for News Corp./MCI Online Ventures.

Designed to permit the daily production of thousands of Internet Web pages
incorporating visual, audio and textual information, the News Center
houses cutting edge digital video and sound editors, multimedia browsers
to collect and display news inputs from dozens of sources, and a unique
integration system that permits information to be rapidly assembled and
converted to hypertext markup language (HTML) for publication on the
Internet's World Wide Web.

"We are producing news not available anywhere else online today," stated
Anthea Disney, editor in chief of News Corp./MCI Online Ventures. "We have
created a unique environment in our News Center to be able to deliver
original, innovative news coverage with bold design and presentation,
fully integrated with striking visual and audio elements. Our News Center
is like a newspaper city desk, a television news room and a high tech
computer center -- all rolled into one."

"We are delighted to have Jonathan and Lew heading up our news production
team," Disney noted. "We are drawing experienced, creative people from a
wide range of disciplines who will be producing timely, innovative and
very engaging news in an entirely new, interactive environment. Jonathan
and Lew have the vision and the strong journalism backgrounds to assemble
and lead this team."

New ground broken for a new medium

In this state-of-art news production facility, digital cameras capture
photographic images for immediate inclusion in news stories being edited
on screens. Journalists, equipped with the latest in hardware and software
technology, can combine text with video clips and then layer over voices,
music and other sounds with the latest digital audio editing equipment.
Reporters, from their desks, can pull news feeds and photographs from wire
services, weaving them into stories as they are written. All of this
coverage is immediately available on the Web, 24 hours a day, seven days a
week.

More than 10 miles of coaxial and fiber optic cable were used in the
construction of the News Center, which is located in the heart of News
Corp./MCI Online Ventures' offices in the Chelsea district of Manhattan --
a creative epicenter for multimedia known as Silicon Alley. The production
environment is driven by a farm of Digital Equipment Corp. Alpha servers
linked in a high-speed switched network to workstations used by the
editors and journalists to write stories, edit video and audio clips,
browse wire services and even conduct videoconferences from their desks.
The layout is intended to maximize the interaction of journalists,
editors, designers and computer programmers.

News Corp./MCI Online Ventures will provide a wide range of interactive
products and services including a comprehensive guide to the Internet, a
variety of games, an engaging online space for children, and a host of
specialized programming developed jointly with News Corp. companies as
well as with other non-affiliated partners.
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email: rbakerpc@delphi.com  -or- RBakerPC (on AOL/Delphi)
 =========================================================
