A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and televisionbroadcasters. News agencies are known for their press releases. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.
Although there are many news agencies around the world, three global news agencies, Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Associated Press (AP), and Reuters have offices in most countries of the world, cover all areas of media, and provide the majority of international news printed by the world's newspapers.[1] All three began with and continue to operate on a basic philosophy of providing a single objective news feed to all subscribers. Jonathan Fenby explains the philosophy:
To achieve such wide acceptability, the agencies avoid overt partiality. Demonstrably correct information is their stock in trade. Traditionally, they report at a reduced level of responsibility, attributing their information to a spokesman, the press, or other sources. They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity. Though their founders did not use the word, objectivity is the philosophical basis for their enterprises – or failing that, widely acceptable neutrality.[2]
Newspaper syndicates generally sell their material to one client in each territory only, while news agencies distribute news articles to all interested parties.
History
Only a few large newspapers could afford bureaus outside their home city; they relied instead on news agencies, especially Havas (founded 1835) in France—now known as Agence France-Presse (AFP)—and the Associated Press (founded 1846) in the United States. Former Havas employees founded Reuters in 1851 in Britain and Wolff in 1849 in Germany.[3] In 1865, Reuter and Wolff signed agreements with Havas's sons, forming a cartel designating exclusive reporting zones for each of their agencies within Europe.[4] For international news, the agencies pooled their resources, so that Havas, for example, covered the French Empire, South America and the Balkans and shared the news with the other national agencies. In France the typical contract with Havas provided a provincial newspaper with 1800 lines of telegraphed text daily, for an annual subscription rate of 10,000 francs. Other agencies provided features and fiction for their subscribers.[5]
The development of the telegraph in the 1850s led to the creation of strong national agencies in England, Germany, Austria and the United States. But despite the efforts of governments, through telegraph laws such as in 1878 in France, inspired by the British Telegraph Act of 1869 which paved the way for the nationalisation of telegraph companies and their operations, the cost of telegraphy remained high.
In the United States, the judgment in Inter Ocean Publishing v. Associated Press facilitated competition by requiring agencies to accept all newspapers wishing to join. As a result of the increasing newspapers, the Associated Press was now challenged by the creation of United Press Associations in 1907 and International News Service by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.
Driven by the huge U.S. domestic market, boosted by the runaway success of radio, all three major agencies required the dismantling of the "cartel agencies" through the Agreement of 26 August 1927. They were concerned about the success of U.S. agencies from other European countries which sought to create national agencies after the First World War. Reuters had been weakened by war censorship, which promoted the creation of newspaper cooperatives in the Commonwealth and national agencies in Asia, two of its strong areas.
After the Second World War, the movement for the creation of national agencies accelerated, when accessing the independence of former colonies, the national agencies were operated by the state. Reuters, became cooperative, managed a breakthrough in finance, and helped to reduce the number of U.S. agencies from three to one, along with the internationalization of the Spanish EFE and the globalization of Agence France-Presse.
In 1924, Benito Mussolini placed Agenzia Stefani under the direction of Manlio Morgagni, who expanded the agency's reach significantly both within Italy and abroad. Agenzia Stefani was dissolved in 1945, and its technical structure and organization were transferred to the new Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA). Wolffs was taken over by the Nazi regime in 1934.[7] The German Press Agency (dpa) in Germany was founded as a co-operative in Goslar on 18 August 1949 and became a limited liability company in 1951. Fritz Sänger was the first editor-in-chief. He served as managing director until 1955 and as managing editor until 1959. The first transmission occurred at 6 a.m. on 1 September 1949.[8]
Since the 1960s, the major agencies were provided with new opportunities in television and magazine, and news agencies delivered specialized production of images and photos, the demand for which is constantly increasing. In France, for example, they account for over two-thirds of national market.[9]
By the 1980s, the four main news agencies, AFP, AP, UPI and Reuters, provided over 90% of foreign news printed by newspapers around the world.[10]
Governments may also control news agencies: China (Xinhua), Russia (TASS), and several other countries have government-funded news agencies which also use information from other agencies as well.[11]
The major news agencies generally prepare hard news stories and feature articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used telegraphy; today they frequently use the Internet). Corporations, individuals, analysts, and intelligence agencies may also subscribe.
News sources, collectively, described as alternative media provide reporting which emphasizes a self-defined "non-corporate view" as a contrast to the points of view expressed in corporate media and government-generated news releases. Internet-based alternative news agencies form one component of these sources.
Associations
There are several different associations of news agencies. EANA is the European Alliance of Press Agencies, while the OANA is an association of news agencies of the Asia-Pacific region. MINDS is a global network of leading news agencies collaborating in new media business.
Agence France-Presse is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), based in London, United Kingdom, is a consortium of the world's major news agencies, other news providers and news industry vendors and acts as the global standards body of the news media.
Australian Associated Press Ltd (AAP) is an Australian news agency. It was founded in 1935 by Keith Murdoch.
dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH is a German news agency founded in 1949. Based in Hamburg, it has grown to be a major worldwide operation serving print media, radio, television, online, mobile phones, and national news agencies. News is available in seven languages, among them German, English, Spanish and Arabic.
The Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau BV (ANP) is the largest news agency in the Netherlands. ANP was founded on 11 December 1934 by the association of Dutch newspapers (NDP). The news agency's founders sought to produce a fast, fair and accurate alternative to the existing commercial news agencies.
The modern newspaper is a European invention. The oldest direct handwritten news sheets circulated widely in Venice as early as 1566. These weekly news sheets were full of information on wars and politics in Italy and Europe. The first printed newspapers were published weekly in Germany from 1605. Typically, they were censored by the government, especially in France, and reported mostly foreign news and current prices. After the English government relaxed censorship in 1695, newspapers flourished in London and a few other cities including Boston and Philadelphia. By the 1830s, high-speed presses could print thousands of papers cheaply, allowing low daily costs.
The Borneo Bulletin is a daily English-language newspaper in Brunei. It is published by Brunei Press, which also publishes a Malay-language daily, Media Permata. The Bulletin circulates around 20,000 copies on weekdays and 25,000 copies on Saturday and Sunday. The Borneo Bulletin is a main source of information on local, regional and foreign affairs, as well as business news. Detailed stock market reports of the Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and regional stock exchanges are carried for the benefit of Bruneian businessmen and investors. In addition to the more serious news, the newspaper carries sports, lifestyle and leisure pages.
Charles-Louis Havas was a French writer, translator, and founder of the first news agency Agence Havas.
Bernhard Wolff was a German media mogul. He was editor of the Vossische Zeitung, founder of the National Zeitung (1848–1938), and founder of Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau (1849–1934), one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three great European telegraph monopolies until World War II, the other two being the English Reuters and the French Havas. The second son of a Jewish banker, Wolff lived and died in Berlin.
European Pressphoto Agency B.V. is an international news and photo agency.
Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest and most trusted news agencies in the world.
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.
The News Media Coalition (NMC) is a group of international news agencies and publications that is focused on preserving freedom of the press.
World news or international news or even foreign coverage is the news media jargon for news from abroad, about a country or a global subject. For journalism, it is a branch that deals with news either sent by foreign correspondents or news agencies, or – more recently – information that is gathered or researched through distance communication technologies, such as telephone, satellite TV or the internet.
Agenzia Stefani was the leading press agency in Italy from the mid-19th century until the end of World War II. It was founded by Guglielmo Stefani on 26 January 1853 in Turin, and was closed on 29 April 1945 in Milan.
Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau (1849–1934) was founded by the German Bernhard Wolff (1811–1879), the editor of the Vossische Zeitung and founder of the National Zeitung (1848–1938). It was one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three major European telegraph news monopolies until the World War II-era, along with the British Reuters and the French Havas.
Guglielmo Stefani was a journalist and founder of the influential press agency Agenzia Stefani.
The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) is a federation of news agencies in Europe. The organisation was founded on 21 August 1956 and is based in Bern at the seat of the Swiss Telegraphic Agency (sda). EANA's predecessor Agences Alliées was founded in 1924 and was active until World War II when its activities were discontinued.
The Telegraphen-Korrespondenz Bureau, also referred to by many other names was a news agency founded in the Austrian Empire in 1849 by Joseph Tuvora (1820–1872) under the auspices of the Austrian government. It is a direct predecessor of the current Austria Press Agency.
↑ Jonathan Fenby, The International News Services (1986), p. 25.
↑ Jonathan Fenby, The International News Services (1986).
↑ "Ch 7 Telegraph"Archived 2013-08-01 at the Wayback Machine , Revolutions in Communication: Media history from Gutenberg to the digital age (2010). Retrieved February 12, 2013.
Fenby, Jonathan. The International News Services (1986) [ISBNmissing]
Gramling, Oliver. AP: The Story of News (1940) [ISBNmissing]
Kenny, Peter. "News agencies as content providers and purveyors of news: A mediahistoriographical study on the development and diversity of wire services" (MPhil Diss. University of Stellenbosch, 2009) online, with a detailed bibliography pp.171–200
Morris, Joel Alex. The Deadline Every Minute: The Story of the United Press (1957) [ISBNmissing]
Paterson, Chris A., and Annabelle Sreberny, eds. International news in the 21st Century (University of Luton Press, 2004) [ISBNmissing]
Putnis, P. "Reuters in Australia: the supply and exchange of news, 1859–1877" Media History (2004). 10#2 pp: 67–88.
Read, D. The power of news: the history of Reuters (Oxford UP, 1992). [ISBNmissing]
Schwarzlose, Richard Allen. The American wire services: a study of their development as a social institution (1979) [ISBNmissing]
Stephens, M. A history of news (3rd ed. Oxford UP, 2007). [ISBNmissing]
Sterling, C. H. "News agencies" in Encyclopedia of international media and communications (2003) 3: 235–246.
Storey, Graham. Reuter's Century (1951) [ISBNmissing]
Xin, X. "A developing market in news: Xinhua News Agency and Chinese newspapers" Media, Culture & Society (2006) 28#1 pp: 45–66.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
