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overview
landmarks
related:
Reuters
Dow Jones
Bloomberg
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This
page highlights the news services, increasingly an example
of online publishing in its purest form with real-time
delivery of information and commercial access to substantial
archival databases.
It covers -
introductions
There is a panoramic view in Jonathan Fenby's The International
News Services (New York: Schocken 1986) and Robert
Desmond's The Information Process: World News Reporting
to the Twentieth Century (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press
1978).
For US wire services see Richard Schwarzlose's The
American Wire Services: A Study of Their Development as
a Social Institution (New York: Ayer 1979) and his
The Nation’s Newsbrokers: The Formative Years: From
Pretelegraph to 1865 (Evanston: Northwestern Uni Press
1989) and The Nation’s Newsbrokers: The Rush to Institution:
From 1820 to 1920 (Evanston: Northwestern Uni Press
1990).
Paul Starr notes in The Creation of the Media: The
Political Origins of Mass Communications (New York:
Basic 2004) that Western Union's initial dominance in
telegraphy in the US kept the rates high and fostered
growth of Associated Press through an exclusive deal with
Western Union. AP membership gave a newspaper the exclusive
right in its location to publish wireservice news, a substantial
advantage over competitors.
In a precursor of contemporary concerns about media influence
Starr also suggests that affiliation with the Republican
Party enabled AP to play a crucial role - through selective
transmission of information - in making Rutherford B Hayes
the winner of the disputed 1876 presidential election.
AP
New York-based Associated Press (AP) is a cooperative
driven by 1,500 US newspaper members. As of early 2004
it had around 242 bureaus outside the US and 8,500 customers
overseas. Overall employment was around 3,700 people.
Oliver Gramling's AP:The Story of News (New York:
Farrar Rinehart 1940) and Joe Morris's Deadline Every
Minute: The Story of the United Press (Garden City:
Doubleday 1957) have a nice period flavour.
UP and UPI
United Press (and United Press International) was established
in the US by the Scripps newspaper
chain to compete with Associated Press.
Down to the Wire: UPI's Fight for Survival (New York:
McGraw-Hill 1990) by Gregory Gordon & Ronald Cohen
is a useful supplement to Schwarzlose.
UK Press Association
The UK Press Association (PA) news service was established
in 1868 to provide news for regional newspapers. Despite
early ambitions of independence it came under the control
of the major metropolitan papers and regional chains.
By the first years of last century it owned around 40%
of Reuters and during the 1939-45
war itstarted supplying the national papers with material.
The major study is George Scott's Reporter Anonymous:
The Story of the Press Association (London: Hutchinson
1968).
In 2005 the Association was rebadged as PA, going on to
acquire weather information service Meteo Consult and
celebrity photo business All Action Digital in an effort
to expand from a UK and Ireland news agency into an international
information business. It continues to use the 'Press Association'
name for its news agency operation. Turnover to the end
of 2005 was £82.9m, up from £69.7m in 2004.
Operating profits reached £5.7m in 2005.
Syndication
For the early history of US syndication services see Charles
Johanningsmeier's Fiction & the American Literary
Marketplace: The Role of Newspaper Syndicates, 1860-1900
(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1997).
There's a broader perspective in Dan Schiller's insightful
Objectivity and the News: The Public & the Rise
of Commercial Journalism (Philadelphia: Uni of Pennsylvania
Press 1981).
Bloomberg
A profile on Bloomberg is here.
AAP
Pointers to information about Australian Associated Press
(AAP)
are under development.
AAP was founded in 1935 as a co-operative news gathering
organisation for 14 newspaper members (notably the Herald
& Weekly Times group - later absorbed by Rupert Murdoch's
News - and the Fairfax group).
In 1947 it formed an alliance with Reuters. In 1950 it
made a similar alliance with AP.
In 1970 it launched its Stockmaster financial data service
and began marketing the Reuters data service in 1975.
In 1997 it floated its telecommunications service - AAPT.
It is currently 44.74% owned by Fairfax and 44.74 by News,
with the remainder by other groups.
Havas and Agence France-Press
The Havas and Wolf news services (independent of the Havas
advertising conglomerate) are dealt with here.
Agence France-Press (AFP), the dominant francophone news
service, traces its origins to the news agency founded
in 1835 by Charles-Louis Havas. As we've noted in the
more detailed profile on Havas as an advertising, distribution
and news service group, with such success that Honore
Balzac claimed that for France in 1850 "in reality,
there is only one newspaper, and it belongs to Monsieur
Havas".
In 1879 Agence Havas became a public company and merged
with the Société Générale
des Annonces advertising bureau in 1920. With the establishment
of the Vichy government in 1940 Paul-Louis Bret launched
Agence française d'Information (AFI) in London,
while in Paris the advertising and news arms of Havas
were split. The news service was nationalised and reorganised
as the Office Français d'Information (OFI). The
Allied invasion of North Africa was reflected in the provisional
government's merger of the Office Français d'Information
and France-Afrique to form Agence Française de
Presse during 1944.
That body in turn absorbed the Agence d'Information et
de Documentation (AID) - established just in time to greet
the Allies - and became the publicly owned Agence France-Presse
in August 1944. (The AFP site deliciously refers to the
date on which a "group of Resistance fighters trade
in their weapons for typewriters".)
In 1957 the AFP was reorganised, with its chief executive
being appointed by a Board of Directors (themselves government
appointees) rather than being directly appointed by the
government. At that time the AFP had 25 provincial bureaux
and 59 overseas bureaux (including 13 in former colonies),
with correspondents in 116 countries. It distributed news
in 73 nations. The government progressively sold some
shares during the 1960s. In 1984 AFP launched its audio
service, followed by an international photo service in
1985. Bulletins were launched on France's Minitel network
in 1986.
In 1991 AFP launched AFX News, an English-language economic
subsidiary. Revenue exceeded one billion francs for the
first time in that year, with the government stake dipping
under 50%. In 1995 AFP ended its alliance with AP for
provision of US news and established an autonomous network
based in New York.
In June 2006 AFX was acquired by Thomson
Financial, an arm of the Thomson Corporation. At that time AFX had 107 employees spread across its head office in London and 12 news bureaux across Europe.
Reuters
A separate profile on Reuters is here.
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