What is ENPS?| It's a computer system developed by the Associated Press that is used by all the newsroom staff to produce a news programme. The evening news is constructed within ENPS: it allows journalists to access and read newswires, see what news items will be on the day's show, write scripts for their pieces and view a calendar where longer term pieces may be scheduled into upcoming programmes. This information is shared by everyone who works at ITN.

With so many people working on a programme, planning is crucial if everything is to run smoothly. The most important tool is the running order|: the list of items on the day's programme in the order that they will be featured on the show. Through ENPS, this is updated throughout the day by the programme editor as new stories come in and the importance of events changes. Reporters and producers save their finished scripts in the running order to share them with the rest of the newsroom.

Longer term planning is also the responsibility of the programme editor who writes prospects| - provisional lists of stories on upcoming programmes that can be accessed through a calendar. Although most stories originate closer to the day, or even on the day, longer term items are often scheduled in beforehand.

Producer Heli Sivunen says that producers and reporters can do virtually everything in ENPS. To get the latest news, she accesses newswires that come in constantly throughout the day in one of the windows. They provide her with a summary of the story and a dope sheet - a list of the pictures available for the story. She can write her script| in another window, and is given the length of time it would take to read it, which is very useful since news items are allocated a specific length of time on the show. Drafts of a script are saved in her personal workspace but once it is complete, she adds it to the running order.

One limitation of ENPS is that video footage cannot be viewed within the system; it must be accessed in a tool called Browse. Heli tells us that the Browse tool| is like a video player: buttons on the screen allow you to press play, spool forwards and backwards, pause and stop the video. Using the information provided in ENPS about the location of the footage, she opens the pictures in Browse, and for short newsbelt items can even edit the clips she wants to use on the programme. Buttons on the screen allow her to select 'in' and 'out' points for the video and save the edited clips in a video gallery in ENPS.