News agencies

News agencies perform a useful service collecting and syndicating news and pictures to subscribing newspapers on an annual contract basis. Most countries nowadays have their own national news agency, some jointly owned by the various newspaper companies, others subsidized by the State. In Britain the main provincial newspaper companies cooperatively own the principal national agency, the Press Association (PA).

News is gathered through correspondents around the country and is edited and transmitted to newspapers from the PA’s London headquarters on four services: news, financial news, sport, and pictures and graphics, plus a world news service of items concerning Britain and Ireland edited from Reuters and Associated Press. All services are on line in computer-ready text, with made-up screen-ready setting offered to subscribers for TV listings, city prices, sports statistics and weather details. In addition, the main services are available by teleprompter, now mainly for non-newspaper customers.

There is also a service for teletext screens and a faxback facility linked to PA’s live news and sports databases by which newspaper readers can dial in for information updates.

The big four international agencies used in Britain – Reuters, United Press International and Associated Press from America, and Agency France Pressed provide for a world daily newspaper circulation of more than 450 million and a world broadcast audience in excess of 1,500 million. Reuters and UPI are the world’s leading suppliers of news film for television. They also sell directly to data banks and private subscribers, and their computerized financial services bring in important revenue.

Volume usage of international agency copy is heaviest in America where it is fed straight into newspaper computers or delivered directly to listeners by the ‘rip and read’ news services of local radio stations.

In Britain, most of the bigger newspapers take. Reuters as well as the national agency, Press Association, and some perhaps one foreign agency Editors usually give staff writers preference if they have covered a story, with the agency service either filling in the gaps in coverage or being used as a news monitor or to check stories. National newspapers with large reporting staffs use least agency copy.

Press Association is the main provider of national news and sport for provincial papers.

The international agencies are useful as initial spot news tipsters, which help papers which are interested but who do not have a man on the spot. A newspaper may then send in a roving ‘firefighter’ correspondent. The reduction in recent years in the numbers of foreign correspondents maintained by Western countries has increased dependence of newspapers of all types on news agencies for news from abroad and the role of news agencies generally is expanding.

Agencies developed originally in the 19th century as part of the expansion of news coverage made possible by the building of the railways and the Introduction of the telegraphic service in the 1840s. The first was the Havas Agency, which began business in Paris in 1837, eventually to be absorbed by Agency France Presse. Reuters was established in London in 1851.

Copy Distribution: Agency copy enters the newspaper as part of the daily news input. The standard practice is to give each story numbered catch lines, and a dateline to show place of origin. A story might be followed by Adds i.e., later material – and maybe eventually a New Lead.

The more important running stories are transmitted under the following codes: Flash: The first brief indication of the story – maybe half a dozen words. Rush: The first actual details available – maybe a couple of paragraphs Snap: Short messages giving brief details as they become available. Rush full: The first full account based on the details so far available. Full: The full authoritative version.