News agency

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Reuters, Bonn 1988

A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.

Contents

History[edit]

The oldest news agency is Agence France-Presse (AFP).[1] It was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. Two of his employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, later set up rival news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. 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.[2] Reuters, founded in 1851, continues to operate as a major international news agency today.[3]

Guglielmo Stefani founded the Agenzia Stefani, which became the most important press agency in Italy from the mid-19th century to World War II, in Turin in 1853. 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).

Commercial services[edit]

News agencies can be corporations that sell news (e.g. Press Association, Thomson Reuters and United Press International). Other agencies work cooperatively with large media companies, generating their news centrally and sharing local news stories the major news agencies may chose to pick up and redistribute (i.e. AP, Agence France-Presse (AFP) or American Press Agency (APA)).

Governments may also control news agencies: China (Xinhua), Russia (ITAR-TASS) and other countries also have government-funded news agencies which also use information from other agencies as well.[4]

Commercial newswire services charge businesses to distribute their news (e.g. Business Wire, the Hugin Group, GlobeNewswire, Marketwire, PR Newswire, PR Web, PR NewsChannel, Pressat, CisionWire, and ABN Newswire).

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.

Major news agencies[edit]

Commercial newswire services[edit]

See also[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: News agencies

References and notes[edit]

  1. ^ Broderick, James F.; Darren W. Miller (2007). Consider the source: A Critical Guide to 100 Prominent News and Information Sites on the Web. Information Today, Inc. p. 1. ISBN 0-910965-77-3. 
  2. ^ "Ch 7 Telegraph", Revolutions in Communication: Media history from Gutenberg to the digital age (2010). Retrieved February 12, 2013.
  3. ^ "Baroness Reuter, last link to news dynasty, dies", Reuters, January 25, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
  4. ^ Boyd-Barrett, Oliver, ed. (2010). News Agencies in the Turbulent Era of the Internet. Generalitat de Catalunya. ISBN 978-84-393-8303-1
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