Print syndication

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Office of The New York Times' news syndicate, c. 1942 New York Times newspaper syndicate. 8d22734v (cropped).jpg
Office of The New York Times' news syndicate, c. 1942

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own and/or represent copyrights. Other terms for the service include a newspaper syndicate, a press syndicate, and a feature syndicate.

Contents

The syndicate is an agency that offers features from notable journalists and authorities as well as reliable and established cartoonists. It fills a need among smaller weekly and daily newspapers for material that helps them compete with large urban papers, at a much lesser cost than if the client were to purchase the material themselves. Generally, syndicates sell their material to one client in each territory. News agencies differ in that they distribute news articles to all interested parties.

Typical syndicated features are advice columns (parenting, health, finance, gardening, cooking, etc.), humor columns, editorial opinion, critic's reviews, and gossip columns. Some syndicates specialize in one type of feature, such as comic strips.

Comic strip syndication

A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions from which only two or three might be selected for representation.

The leading strip syndicates include Andrews McMeel Syndication, King Features Syndicate, [1] and Creators Syndicate, with the Tribune Content Agency and The Washington Post Writers Group also in the running.

Editorial cartoon syndication

Syndication of editorial cartoons has an important impact on the form, since cartoons about local issues or politicians are not of interest to the national market. [2] Therefore, an artist who contracts with a syndicate will either be one who already focuses their work on national and global issues, or will shift focus accordingly.

History

An early version of syndication was practiced in the Journal of Occurrences , a series of newspaper articles published by an anonymous group of "patriots" in 1768–1769 in the New York Journal and Packet and other newspapers, chronicling the occupation of Boston by the British Army.

According to historian Elmo Scott Watson, true print syndication began in 1841 with a two-page supplement produced by New York Sun publisher Moses Yale Beach and sold to a score of newspapers in the U.S. northeast. [3]

By the end of the Civil War, three syndicates were in operation, selling news items and short fiction pieces. By 1881, Associated Press correspondent Henry Villard was self-syndicating material to the Chicago Tribune , the Cincinnati Commercial , and the New York Herald . A few years later, the New York Sun's Charles A. Dana formed a syndicate to sell the short stories of Bret Harte and Henry James.

The first full-fledged American newspaper syndicate was the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, launched in 1884 by publisher S. S. McClure. It was the first successful company of its kind, turning the marketing of columns, book serials (by the likes of Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle), and eventually comic strips, into a large industry. [4]

Syndication properly took off in 1896 when the competitors the New York World and the New York Journal began producing Sunday comic pages. The daily comic strip came into practice in 1907, revolutionizing and expanding the syndication business. Syndicates began providing client newspaper with proof sheets of black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips." [5]

By 1984, 300 syndicates were distributing 10,000 features with combined sales of $100 million a year. [4]

With the 1960s advent of the underground press, associations like the Underground Press Syndicate, and later the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, worked together to syndicate material — including weekly comic strips — for each other's publications.

Syndication services

Prominent contemporary syndication services include:

IFA-Amsterdam (International Feature Agency) provides news and lifestyle content to publications. Cagle Cartoons offers newspaper editorial cartoons and columns. 3DSyndication comprises syndication service from India, the India Today Group's Syndications Today, and Times Syndication Service of India.

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

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An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws editorial cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. Their cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or current affairs in a national or international context. Political cartoonists generally adopt a caricaturist style of drawing, to capture the likeness of a politician or subject. They may also employ humor or satire to ridicule an individual or group, emphasize their point of view or comment on a particular event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King Features Syndicate</span> American print syndication company

King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Media</span> Defunct print syndication service

United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newspaper Enterprise Association</span> American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service

The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news service to the Scripps Howard News Service; it later evolved into a general syndicate best known for syndicating the comic strips Alley Oop, Our Boarding House, Freckles and His Friends, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, and Captain Easy / Wash Tubbs; in addition to an annual Christmas comic strip. Along with United Feature Syndicate, the NEA was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. The NEA once selected college All-America teams, and presented awards in professional football and professional [NBA] basketball.

Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird. Founded in 1970, it was merged in July 2009 with Uclick to form Universal Uclick.

Glenn McCoy is a conservative American cartoonist, whose work includes the comic strip The Duplex and the daily panel he does with his brother Gary entitled The Flying McCoys. McCoy previously produced editorial cartoons until May 2018, when he refocused his career on animations after being discharged from his job of 22 years at the Belleville News-Democrat. All three cartoon features are syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndication.

Bill Schorr is an American cartoonist of syndicated editorial cartoons and comic strips.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daryl Cagle</span> American cartoonist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribune Content Agency</span> American syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing

Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media Services. TCA is headquartered in Chicago, and had offices in various American cities, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong.

Steve Kelley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a syndicated editorial cartoonist, comic strip creator, comedian, and writer. He has previously served as staff political cartoonist for The San Diego Union / The San Diego Union-Tribune and The New Orleans Times-Picayune. He began work at the Post-Gazette in November 2018.

Loose Parts is a daily single-panel comic strip by Dave Blazek. It is similar in tone, content, and style to Gary Larson's The Far Side, involving Theatre of the Absurd-style themes and characters. Loose Parts is currently syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndication and appears in newspapers across the country and overseas.

A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McNaught Syndicate</span> American newspaper syndicate between 1922 and 1989

The McNaught Syndicate was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre, the Dear Abby letters section and comic strips, including Joe Palooka and Heathcliff. It folded in September 1989.

Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.

<i>The Washington Post</i> Writers Group Press syndication service

The Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), a division of The Washington Post News Service & Syndicate, is a press syndication service distributing opinion columnists, breaking news, podcasts and video journalism, lifestyle content, and graphics and data visualizations. The service is operated by The Washington Post.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrews McMeel Syndication</span> American content syndicate

Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ArcaMax Publishing</span> American web syndication service

ArcaMax Publishing is a privately-owned American web/email syndication news publisher that provides editorial content, columns & features, comic strips, and editorial cartoons via email. ArcaMax also produces co-branded newsletters with corporate clients.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Dwyer, Ed. "CULTURE: The Funny Papers: Newspapers may be in trouble, but the comic strip is alive and well — and flourishing online", Saturday Evening Post (November 7, 2016).
  2. ↑ Hynds, Ernest C. (April 1979). "Herblock, Oliphant, MacNelly Lead Cartoon Resurgence". Newspaper Research Journal: 54–60.
  3. ↑ Watson, Elmo Scott. "CHAPTER VIII: Recent Developments in Syndicate History 1921-1935", History of Newspaper Syndicates. Archived at Stripper's Guide.
  4. 1 2 Time, 1977.
  5. ↑ Scott, Randy. "The King Features Proof Sheet Collection". Insight. Fall 2009. p. 3.

Sources consulted

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