Information sources of foreign media. World news agencies

Theme 4 – 1 h.

Lecture 4

World news agencies - the leading news sources of foreign media. The role of news agencies in the creation of a global information space.
"Associated Press" - "AP", The largest U.S. Information Agency.
"United Press International" - "UPI", The second-largest U.S. Information Agency.

The agency "Reuters". The main British news agency.
The agency "France Presse" - "AFP." Commercial enterprise that is both subsidized and the French government.
Agency "ITAR-TASS". News Agency of Russia.
Participation of international news agencies in the international information exchange in the foreign propaganda.

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.

News agency, also called press agency, press association, wire service, or news service, organization that gathers, writes, and distributes news from around a nation or the world to newspapers, periodicals, radio and television broadcasters, government agencies, and other users. It does not generally publish news itself but supplies news to its subscribers, who, by sharing costs, obtain services they could not otherwise afford. All the mass media depend upon the agencies for the bulk of the news, even including those few that have extensive news-gathering resources of their own.

The news agency has a variety of forms. In some large cities, newspapers and radio and television stations have joined forces to obtain routine coverage of news about the police, courts, government offices, and the like. National agencies have extended the area of such coverage by gathering and distributing stock-market quotations, sports results, and election reports. A few agencies have extended their service to include worldwide news. The service has grown to include news interpretation, special columns, news photographs, audiotape recordings for radio broadcast, and often videotape or motion-picture film for television news reports. Many agencies are cooperatives, and the trend has been in that direction since World War II. Under this form of organization, individual members provide news from their own circulation areas to an agency pool for general use. In major news centres the national and worldwide agencies have their own reporters to cover important events, and they maintain offices to facilitate distribution of their service.

In addition to general news agencies, several specialized services have developed. In the United States alone these number well over 100, including such major ones as Science Service, Religious News Service, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and News Election Service. Specialized services in other countries include the Swiss Katholische Internationale Presseagentur, which reports news of special interest to Roman Catholics, and the Star News Agency of Pakistan, which supplies news of Muslim interest in English and Urdu.

The oldest news agency is Agence France-Presse (AFP). 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 1853, in Turin, Guglielmo Stefani founded the Agenzia Stefani, that became the most important agency in the Kingdom of Italy, and took international relevance with Manlio Morgagni.

In order to reduce overhead and develop the lucrative advertising side of the business, Havas's sons, who had succeeded him in 1852, signed agreements with Reuter and Wolff, giving each news agency an exclusive reporting zone in different parts of Europe.

Agence France-Presse (AFP), French cooperative news agency, one of the world’s great wire news services. It is based in Paris, where it was founded under its current name in 1944, but its roots go to the Bureau Havas, which was created in 1832 by Charles-Louis Havas, who translated reports from foreign papers and distributed them to Paris and provincial newspapers. In 1835 the Bureau Havas became the Agence Havas, the world’s first true news agency. Stressing rapid transmission of the news, Agence Havas established the first telegraph service in France in 1845. Between 1852 and 1919 the agency worked in close collaboration with an advertising firm, the Correspondance General Havas. Staff correspondents for the agency were stationed in many world capitals by the late 1800s.

The Associated Press has been breaking news since it was created in 1846. That year, five New York City newspapers got together to fund a pony express route through Alabama in order to bring news of the Mexican War north more quickly than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it. In the decades since, AP has been first to tell the world of many of history’s most important moments, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the fall of the shah of Iran and the death of Pope John Paul.

More than 30 AP journalists have given their lives in this pursuit of the news.

One reason for AP’s longevity has been its ability to adapt quickly to new technologies. When it was founded, words were the only medium of communication. The first private sector organization in the U.S. to operate on a national scale, AP delivered news by pigeon, pony express, railroad, steamship, telegraph and teletype in the early years. In 1935, AP began sending photographs by wire. A radio network was formed in 1973, and an international video division was added in 1994. In 2005, a digital database was created to hold all AP content, which has allowed the agency to deliver news instantly and in every format to the ever expanding online world. Today, AP news moves in digital bits that travel nearly as quickly as the news itself unfolds, to every platform available, from newspaper to tablets. AP’s video division is now the world’s leading video news agency.

Often called the “Marine Corps of journalism”—always first in and last out—AP reports history in urgent installments, always on deadline. AP staff in 300 locations in more than 100 countries deliver breaking news that is seen or read by half the world’s population on any given day. It remains a not-for-profit cooperative, owned by 1,500 U.S. newspapers, which are both its customers and its members. A Board of Directors comprised of publishers, editors, and broadcast and radio executives oversee the cooperative.

Even in this digital age, AP remains the definitive source for reliable news across the globe. While the company has gone from distributing news via pony express to instantaneous digital transmission, its news values and mission remain the same.

“The people of the AP are part of the fabric of freedom,” said former board chairman Frank Batten. “They are the honest messengers, mostly anonymous, far from the limelight, often at risk and always committed to getting out the news as thoroughly and as accurately as possible.”

The AP is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers and commercial customers. AP is neither privately owned nor government-funded; instead, as a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members, it can maintain its single-minded focus on newsgathering and its commitment to the highest standards of objective, accurate journalism.

Since 1907, United Press International (UPI) has been a leading provider of critical information to media outlets, businesses, governments and researchers worldwide. UPI is a global operation with offices in Beirut, Hong Kong, London, Santiago, Seoul and Tokyo. Our headquarters is located in downtown Washington, DC, surrounded by major international policy-making governmental and non-governmental organizations.

UPI licenses content directly to print outlets, online media and institutions of all types. In addition, UPI's distribution partners provide our content to thousands of businesses, policy groups and academic institutions worldwide. Our audience consists of millions of decision-makers who depend on UPI's insightful and analytical stories to make better business or policy decisions.

In the year of our 101st anniversary, our company strives to continue being a leading and trusted source for news, analysis and insight for readers around the world.

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