Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines News as -
1) a: a report of recent events
b: previously unknown information
c: something having a specified influence or effect
2) a: material reported in a newspaper or news periodical or on a newscast
b: matter that is newsworthy
… And an Agency as –
1) a: the office or function of an agent
b: the relationship between a principal and that person's agent
2) the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power : operation
3) a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved : instrumentality
4) an establishment engaged in doing business for another
5) an administrative division (as of a government)
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines News Agency as “ An organization that supplies news to subscribing newspapers, periodicals, and newscasters.”
Wikipedia’s definition of News Agency goes this way –
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to organizations in the news trade: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. These are known as wire services or news services.
Britannica Encyclopedia’s Definition of News Agency -
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.
VARIOUS FORMS OF NEWS AGENCIES:
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 major press associations in the United States have expanded their service to include entertainment features, and some feature syndicates provide straight news coverage as a part of their service. The Newspaper Enterprise Association distributes both news and features in the United States.
Despite the plethora of news services, most news printed and broadcast throughout the world each day comes from only a few major agencies, the three largest of which are the Associated Press in the United States, Reuters in Great Britain, and Agence France-Presse in France.
Only these and a few others have the financial resources to station experienced reporters in all areas of the world where news develops regularly (in order to ensure access to well-organized transmission facilities) or to send them wherever news develops unexpectedly. These agencies are also equipped to distribute the service almost instantaneously.
Evolution of News Agencies
As early as the 1820s a news agency, the Association of Morning Newspapers, was formed in New York City to gather incoming reports from Europe. Other local news agencies sprang up, and by 1856 the General News Association—comprising many important New York City papers—was organized.
Out of this agency emerged in the 1870s the New York Associated Press, a cooperative news agency for New York papers that sold copy to daily papers throughout the country; the United Press began in 1882. Ten years later these organizations were merged, but the same year a rival agency, the Associated Press of Illinois, was founded.
Agence France Press (AFP) was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. Two of his employees, Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, later set up rival news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. In order to reduce overheads 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.
And so, in Europe three international agencies had arisen—Agence Havas of Paris (1835); the Reuter Telegram Company of London (1851), known simply as Reuters; and the Continental Telegraphen Compagnie of Berlin (1849), known as the Wolff Agency.
These began as financial-data services for bankers but extended their coverage to world news. By 1866 national agencies were arising in many European countries; they covered and sold news locally, relying on the major services for coverage and sales abroad.
After the Associated Press of Illinois signed exchange contracts with the worldwide networks, the United Press went under (1897). In 1900 the Associated Press of Illinois, desiring to restrict its membership, reincorporated in New York state and was thereafter known as the Associated Press (AP); in 1915 the United States forbade the agency to restrict its members' use of other services. A Supreme Court decision in 1945 ended the exclusion of members' competitors.
In 1906 William Randolph Hearst founded the International News Service (INS), available to papers of other publishers as well as his own. The United Press Association, usually called United Press (UP) although there was no connection with the earlier organization, became an affiliate of the Scripps-Howard newspapers and sold reports to others.
The AP, UP, and INS grew steadily, and by the 1930s their foreign operations freed them of dependence on the European agencies, which tended to reflect national viewpoints in political news. In 1958 INS was merged with UP, forming United Press International (UPI). After a string of owners in the 1980s, UPI's assets were acquired in 1992 by Middle East Broadcasting Limited.
After World War II many agencies, including Reuters, AP, and Agence France-Presse (the renamed Agence Havas) became cooperatives owned by their member publishers. Notable cooperatives allied with Reuters include the Canadian Press, the Australian Associated Press, and the Press Trust of India.
Government Agencies
Government ownership of news agencies stems from the early 1900s. In 1904 the St. Petersburg (later Petrograd) Telegraph Agency was founded by the Russian government. In 1918, Soviet Russia founded Rosta by merging the telegraph agency with the government press bureau, and in 1925 Rosta became TASS. Today, as ITAR-TASS it is the official news service of Russia and also provides coverage of the other former Soviet republics. In 1915, Germany established a service called Transocean to broadcast war propaganda. The New China News Agency (Xinhua), founded in 1931 as the Red China News Agency, maintains official news and financial service wires, publishes dozens of newspapers and magazines, has its own advertising and public relations firms, and runs a school of journalism. Since 1990 independent news agencies have appeared in Eastern Europe, including Interfax in Russia and A. M. Pres in Romania.
News Transmission
From 1915 until the 1940s, news agencies in the United States transmitted most copy over telephone wires to teletypewriters in newspaper offices. The late 1940s, however, brought the introduction of Teletypesetter machines, which allowed the stories from the agencies, in the form of perforated paper tape, to be fed into typesetting, or linotype, machines, without the use of human operators.
In using Teletypesetters to save labor, publishers ceded to the agencies some of their editing prerogative, thereby standardizing usage and writing style in newspaper stories.
Newspapers moved from linotype to photocomposition in the late 1960s to 1970s. The data is transmitted by telephone or satellite service, and newspapers reconstruct the information in their own format. Most news agencies also offer their clients photographs, news analyses, and special features; for radio and television stations they transmit news-broadcast scripts.
Since the advent of computer technology, many news services have become available on line.
The ability to transmit news rapidly greatly increased during the 20th century. Radioteleprinters that make possible fast automatic transmission of news messages linked all major areas. Picture transmission by radio and high-fidelity wires became well developed. From the major agencies, teletypesetter service, pioneered by the Associated Press in 1951, was available to newspapers wishing to have computerized typesetting done directly from news-service transmissions. By the 21st century, most news agencies had moved the bulk of their operations and transmission to computers.
Commercial services
News agencies can be corporations that sell news (e.g. Thomson Reuters, UPI). 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), MYOP). Commercial newswire services charge businesses to distribute their news (e.g. Business Wire, the Hugin Group, Market Wire, PR Newswire, and ABN Newswire).
Governments may also control news agencies: China (Xinhua), Britain, Canada, Russia (ITAR-TASS) and other countries also have government-funded news agencies which also use information from other agencies well.
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.
Internet-based alternative news agencies as a component of the larger alternative media emphasizes a "non-corporate view" that is independent of the pressures of corporate media, business media and government-generated news and releases.
Market effects
Many publicly traded companies solicit business analysis firms to produce favourable reports and then submit these through wire services. These stories often form the basis for public news about a company and may affect stock performance.
List Major news agencies
Agence France-Presse
Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau
Associated Press
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
European Pressphoto Agency
Kyodo News
Reuters
United Press International
Xinhua News Agency
Yonhap
GROWTH OF NEWS AGENCIES AROUND WORLD:
The world agencies have established a variety of relationships with other agencies and with individual news media. Most of them purchase the news services of national or local agencies to supplement news gathered by their own staff representatives at key points.
Reuters, like the Agence France-Presse, supplies a worldwide news file to be distributed by some national agencies along with their domestic news reports. The American services more often contract to deliver their service directly to individual users abroad.
News agencies in communist countries had close ties to their national governments. Each major communist country had its own national news service, and each news service was officially controlled, usually by the minister of information.
TASS, the Soviet news agency, was the principal source of world news for the Soviet Union and its allies; it also made Soviet Communist Party policy known. Communist states outside the Soviet sphere, e.g., China and Yugoslavia, had their own state news services, which were controlled in similar fashion. China's Hsinhua, or New China News Agency, was the largest remaining news agency in a communist country by the late 20th century.
Most other countries have one or more national news agencies. Some depend on a common service, such as the Arab News Agency, which provides news for several states in the Middle East. Others are national newspaper cooperatives, such as the Ritzaus Bureau of Denmark, founded in 1866.
A few, like the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata of Italy, have expanded coverage abroad in a limited degree to supplement their domestic service but still depend on Reuters and Agence France-Presse for much of their foreign news. Germany since 1949 has built Deutsche-Presse Agentur into one of the more important news agencies in Europe, including extensive exchange with other national services.
In Canada the Canadian Press is a cooperative news agency with headquarters in Toronto. The oldest and largest news agency operating exclusively in Britain is the Press Association, founded by provincial newspapers on a cooperative basis in 1868. It began active work on February 5, 1870, when the postal service took over the private telegraph companies that had previously supplied the provincial papers with news. It supplies news to all the London daily and Sunday newspapers, provincial papers, and trade journals and other periodicals.
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is the oldest news agency in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency.
AFP is based in Paris, with regional centres in Washington, Hong Kong, Nicosia, São Paulo, Montevideo and bureaux in 110 countries. It transmits news in French, English, Arabic, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.
History
The agency was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. Two of his employees, Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, later set up rival news agencies in London and Berlin respectively.
In order to reduce overheads 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. This arrangement lasted until the 1930s, when the invention of short-wave wireless improved and cut communications costs.
To help Havas extend the scope of its reporting at a time of great international tension, the French government financed up to 47% of its investments. When German forces occupied France in 1940, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed the French Information Office (FIO); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas.
On August 20, 1944, as Allied forces moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse. Established as a state enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of Joseph Stalin, on March 6, 1953. AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on January 10, 1957 the French parliament passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the agency’s revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined.
In 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its four autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong. Each region has its own budget, administrative director and chief editor. In September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide.
Status
AFP is a government-chartered public corporation operating under a 1957 law, but is officially a commercial business independent of the French government.
AFP is administered by a CEO and a board comprising 15 members:
Eight representatives of the French press;
Two representatives of the AFP personnel;
Two representatives of the government-owned radio and television;
Three representatives of the government. One is named by the prime minister, another by the minister of finance, and a third by the minister of foreign affairs.
The board elects the CEO for a renewable term of three years. The AFP also has a council charged with ensuring that the agency operates according to its statutes, which mandate absolute independence and neutrality.
Editorially, AFP is governed by a network of senior journalists. By statute, AFP ’s mission is to report events, free of “all influences or considerations likely to impair the exactitude” of its news. And “under no circumstances to pass under the legal or actual control of an ideological, political or economic group.”
The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services. In practice, those subscriptions are an indirect subsidy to AFP. The statutes of the agency prohibit direct government subsidies.
Investments
Notable investments include:
AFP GmbH:
AFP GmbH is the subsidiary of AFP in Germany, producing German-language services for local press, internet and corporate clients.
SID:
Sport-Informations-Dienst (SID) is producing a German-language sports service.
Citizenside:
In November 2007, AFP has announced its investment into Scooplive a news photo and video agency online, created in France in 2006. Scooplive became Citizenside after this investment.
REUTERS
Reuters Group Limited (pronounced roi-terz) is a British based news service and former financial market data provider that provides reports from around the world to newspapers and broadcasters. News reporting once accounted for less than 10% of the company's income. Its main focus was on supplying the financial markets with information and trading products. These included market data, such as share prices and currency rates, research and analytics, as well as trading systems that allowed dealers to buy and sell such things as currencies and shares on a computer screen instead of by telephone or on a trading floor like that of the New York Stock Exchange. Among other services, the most notable was analysis of 40,000 companies, debt instruments, and 3 million economic series. Competitors included Bloomberg L.P. and Dow Jones Newswires.
History
Reuters Data Centre, London Paul Julius Reuter noticed that, with the electric telegraph, news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In 1850, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen, Germany, close to the Netherlands' and Belgian borders, and he began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, there was a 76-mile (122 km) gap in the line between Aachen and Brussels, the Belgian capital city and the financial center of that country.
Reuter saw there was an opportunity to speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin by using homing pigeons to bridge that gap in the telegraph lines.
In 1851, Reuter moved to London, England. After failures in 1847 and 1850, attempts by the Submarine Telegraph Company to lay an undersea telegraph cable from Dover to Calais appeared to promise success.
Reuter set up his "Submarine Telegraph" office in October 1851 just before the opening of that undersea cable in November, and he negotiated a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from the continental exchanges in return for access to the London prices, which he then supplied to stockbrokers in Paris, France.
In 1865, Reuter's private firm was restructured, and it became a limited company (a corporation) called the Reuter's Telegram Company. Reuter had been naturalized as a British citizen in 1857.
Reuter's agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report news scoops from abroad, like the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. After many decades of progress, almost every major news outlet in the world subscribes to the Reuters company's services. It operates in at least 200 cities in 94 countries, supplying news text in about 20 languages.
Reuters was financed as a public company in 1984 on the London Stock Exchange and on the NASDAQ in the USA. However, there were concerns that the company's tradition for objective reporting might be jeopardised if control of the company later fell into the hands of a single shareholder.
To counter that possibility, the constitution of the company at the time of the stock offering included a rule that no individual was allowed to own more than 15% of the company. If this limit is exceeded, the directors can order the shareholder to reduce the holding to less than 15%.
That rule was applied in the late 1980s when Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already held around 15% of Reuters, bought an Australian news company that also owned stock in Reuters. The acquisition meant that Murdoch then held more than 15%, and then he was compelled to reduce the holding to less than 15% to stay in line with the rules.
At the same time, as a further measure to protect the independence of Reuters news reporting, The Reuters Founders Share Company was set up. This is a company whose sole task is to protect the integrity of the company's news output. It holds one "Founders Share" which can outvote all other shares in the event that an attempt is made to alter any of the rules relating to the Reuters Trust Principles. These principles set out the company's aim to preserve its independence, integrity, and freedom from bias in its news reporting.
Reuters began to grow rapidly in the 1980s, widening the range of its business products and expanding its global reporting network for media, financial and economic services. Recent key product launches include Equities 2000 (1987), Dealing 2000-2 (1992), Business Briefing (1994), Reuters Television for the financial markets (1994), 3000 Series (1996) and the Reuters 3000 Xtra service (1999). In the mid-1990s, the Reuters company engaged in a brief foray in the radio sector - with London Radio's two radio stations, London News 97.3 FM and London News Talk 1152 AM. A Reuters Radio News service was also set up to compete with the Independent Radio News.
In 1995, Reuters established its "Greenhouse Fund" to take minority investments in a range of start-up technology companies, initially in the USA, only.
On 15 May 2007, The Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, in a deal valued at US $17.2 billion. Thomsons now controls about 53% of the new company, named Thomson Reuters. The new chief of Thomson Reuters is Tom Glocer, the former head of Reuters. The earlier rule of 15% ownership (see above) was waived; the reason as given by Pehr Gyllenhammar, the chairman of the Reuters Founders Share Company, was "The future of Reuters takes precedence over the principles.
If Reuters were not strong enough to continue on its own, the principles would have no meaning." citing the recent bad financial performance of the company. On 26 March 2008, shareholders of both organisations agreed the merger. The acquisition was closed on 17 April 2008.
In October 2007, Reuters Market Light, a division of Reuters, launched a mobile phone service for Indian farmers to provide local and customized commodity pricing information, news, and weather updates.
Journalists
Reuters has a team of several thousand journalists who over the years have covered major news events, sometimes at the cost of their lives. In May 2000, Kurt Schork, an American reporter, was killed in an ambush while on assignment in Sierra Leone. In April and August 2003, news cameramen Taras Protsyuk and Mazen Dana were both killed in two separate incidents by US troops in Iraq. During 2004, cameramen Adlan Khasanov in Chechnya and Dhia Najim in Iraq were also killed. In April 2008 Fadel Shana, a cameraman, was killed in the Gaza Strip after he was hit by an Israeli tank using controversial weapons known as flechettes.
The first Reuters journalist to be taken hostage in action was Anthony Grey. Detained while covering the Cultural Revolution in Peking in the late 1960s, said to be in response to the jailing of several Chinese terrorists by the colonial British Government in Hong Kong. He was considered to be the first political hostage of the modern age and was eventually released after almost 2 years solitary confinement. Awarded an OBE by the British Government in recognition of this, he went on to become a best selling author.
In recent years Reuters news service was subject to severe budget cuts.
Fatalities
Name
Nationality
Event Location
Event Date
Kurt Schork
American
Sierra Leone
2000-05-24
Taras Protsyuk
Ukrainian
Iraq
2003-04-08
Mazen Dana
Palestinian
Iraq
2003-08-17
Adlan Khasanov
Chechen
Chechnya
2004-05-09
Dhia Najim
Iraq
2004-11-01
Fadel Shana
Palestinian
Gaza Strip
2008-04-16
Investments
Notable investments include:
Action Images - On September 19, 2005, Reuters purchased North London-based Action Images, a deep collection of sports photography that includes more than 8 million images of which 1.7 million are online.
Application Networks - In June 2006, Reuters acquired Application Networks, Inc., a provider of trade and risk management software based on JRisk, and agrees to acquire Feri Fund Market Information Ltd (FERI FMI) and its fund database subsidiary, FI Datenservice GmbH (FID)
AVT Technologies - In December 2002, Reuters announced that it would acquire AVT Technologies, a specialist in foreign exchange transaction technology. Concurrent with the deal, Reuters established an Automated Dealing Technologies business unit, headed up by Mark Redwood, CEO of AVT Technologies.
Bridge Information Systems - On September 28, 2001, it completed the largest acquisition in its history acquired certain businesses and assets of Bridge Information Systems Inc. Also during the year, the Group acquired 100% of Diagram fip SA and 92% of ProTrader Group LP. In October 2001, the Group disposed of its majority stake in VentureOne Corp.
Clearforest - In June 2007, Reuters acquired Clearforest, a provider of Text Analytics solutions, whose tagging platform and analytical products allow clients to derive business information from textual content.
EcoWin - In November 2005, Reuters acquired EcoWin, a Gothenburg (Sweden) based provider of global fianancial, equities, and economic data.
Factiva - In May 1999, Reuters entered a joint venture with long-time rival, Dow Jones & Company, to form Factiva , a business news and information provider. In December 2006, Reuters sold its 50% share in Factiva to Dow Jones, who is now the sole owner.
Instinet - In May 2001, Instinet completed an IPO on NASDAQ; Reuters sold its majority stake in Instinet to The Nasdaq Stock Market in 2005.
Multex.com Inc. - In March 2003, Reuters acquired Multex.com, Inc., a provider of global financial information.
TIBCO Software - In July 1999,TIBCO Software completed an IPO on NASDAQ; Reuters retains a substantial proportion of the shares. Reuters announced in early 2000 a range of major initiatives designed to accelerate its use of internet technologies, open new markets and migrate its core business to an internet-based model.
Main corporate locations
From 1939, the Reuters corporate headquarters was in London's famous Fleet Street in a building designed for it by Sir Edwin Lutyens, but in 2005 Reuters moved to a larger building in the more modern Canary Wharf. The Reuters Building at 30 South Colonnade is near the One Canada Square tower, Jubilee Park and Canary Wharf tube station. The open space below the Reuters building has since been renamed Reuters Plaza. The company's North American headquarters is the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square, New York. It is on 7th Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, and was constructed from 1998 to 2001.
Critique
Reuters has a strict policy towards upholding objectiveness and this policy has caused many to comment on the possible insensitivity of its reports covering major global events including: September 11, 2001, attacks. Reuters global news editor Stephen Jukes wrote, "We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist."
The Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz responded, "After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and again after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Reuters allowed the events to be described as acts of terror. But as of last week, even that terminology is banned." Reuters later apologized for this characterization of their policy , although they maintained the policy itself.
The September 20, 2004, edition of the The New York Times reported that the Reuters Global Managing Editor, David A. Schlesinger, objected to Canadian newspapers' editing of Reuters articles through inclusion of the word "terrorist," stating that "my goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity." Due to this policy, Reuters was careful to only use the word "terrorist" in quotes, whether quotations or scare quotes. However, when reporting the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the service reported, "Police said they suspected terrorists were behind the bombings." The contrast between this and their aforementioned policy was criticized, although by that point Reuters policy was to use such words "when we are quoting someone directly or in indirect speech," and this headline is an example of the latter. The news organization has subsequently used the term "terrorist" without quotations when the article clarifies that it is someone else's words.
Photographs controversies
Reuters was accused of bias against Israel in its coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, in which the company used two doctored photos by a Lebanese freelance photographer Adnan Hajj . On August 7, 2006, Reuters announced it severed all ties with Hajj and said his photographs would be removed from its database.
Press Trust of India
Press Trust Of India (PTI) is a news agency cooperatively owned by Indian newspapers, which joined together to take over the management of the Associated Press of India and the Indian outlets of the Reuters news agency of Great Britain. It began operating in February 1949 and is headquartered in Bombay.
PTI is the largest news agency in India. It is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 450 Indian newspapers and has a staff of more than 1,300. It took over the Indian operations of the Associated Press and Reuters soon after India's independence on August 27, 1947. It provides news coverage and information of the region in both English and Hindi.
All major TV/Radio channels in india and several abroad, including BBC in London, receive the PTI Service. With a staff of over 1,300 including 400 journalists, PTI has over 80 bureaus across the country and foreign correspondents in major cities of the world including Beijing, Dhaka, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Islamabad, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, London, Moscow, New York, Washington and Sydney.
In addition, about 475 stringers contribute to the news file at home.
It exchanges information with several other news agencies including 100 news agencies based outside India, such as Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, The New York Times Company and Bloomberg for distribution of their news in India, and with the the Associated Press for its Photo Service and International commercial information. PTI exchanges news with nearly 100 news agencies of the world as part of bilateral and multilateral arrangements, including Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool and the Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies. Major Indian subscribers of PTI include Times of India and Hindustan Times.
A national nonprofit enterprise, PTI, which operates primarily in English, as do most of India's large dailies, became one of the Third World's largest cooperative news agencies. It employed some 2,000 writers and other specialists in more than 150 offices, with correspondents in important world population centres. In the 1980s PTI underwent a program of modernization and diversification; it computerized many of its operations, introduced services in Hindi and other languages, and established a television facility (1986) as well as the country's first wire photo service (1987).
In 1976 the government declared a state of emergency and required PTI to merge with India's other three major agencies, the English-language United News of India and the multilingual Hindustan Samachar and Samachar Bharati, but in 1978, the four agencies were allowed to start operating independently again.
Services Provided By PTI
English News Service
Available in two forms. The ‘core’ service covers major developments in diverse fields in a compact form. A more comprehensive segmented service allows papers to pick additional inputs from segments of their choice. National/Regional, Economic/Commercial, International, and Sports. Core service puts out about 40,000 words and the full segmented service upto 100,000 words per day.
BHASHA
Bhasha is the Hindi language news service of PTI. With its own network in the Hindi-speaking states and drawing on PTI files, Bhasha puts out about 40,000 words per day.
STOCK SCAN
A screen-based service providing stock market information from major stock exchanges of the country.
NEWS SCAN
Displays news in capsule from on video monitors. Major developments in the country and abroad are covered.
DATA INDIA
A reference weekly providing a digest on the happenings in India, in a user-friendly alphabetical listing.
ECONOMIC SERVICE
A fortnightly journal providing analytical reports on the state of the Indian economy and trends in the corporate world.
PTI MAG
A weekly package of eleven special stories on topics ranging from arts to business to science. Available through the wire service as well as through mail.
SCIENCE SERVICE
Reports on the developments in the fields of science and technology with particular reference to India in a fortnightly journal.
PTI FEATURE
A package of four weekly features on topical national, international and general events. PTI-TV Provides spot coverage and makes corporate documentaries on assignment basis.
PHOTO
Available in two packages to suit the needs of small and big newspapers. PTI Photo provides pictures on the national, foreign and sports scenes via satellite, dial-up and hand delivery. The full colour service of the Associated Press Of America (AP) is also made available through PTI.
ASIA PULSE
An on-line data bank on economic developments and business opportunities in asian countries. Formed by PTI and four other Asian media organisations, Asia Pulse International is registered as a company in Singapore.
History Of PTI
1910 Birth of Associated Press of India, PTI's forerunner floated by K C Roy
1919 Reuters takes over operations of API but still uses API credit line
1945 API registered as a private limited Indian company wholly owned by Reuters
1947, August 27 Press Trust of India incorporated in Madras
1949, February 1 PTI begins news services, taking over operations from API but still maintains links with Reuters.
1953 PTI becomes a free agent, independent of Reuters
1976 PTI Economic Service is launched
1976, February PTI, UNI, Samachar Bharati and Hindustan Samachar merge under pressure during emergency to become 'Samachar'
1978, April PTI and the other three news agencies go back to their original units to restrart independent news operations
1980, July PTI Feature Service launched
1981, October PTI Science Service launched
1982, November PTI launches Scan, on-screen news display service
1984 PTI service launched for subscribers in USA
1985 Computerisation of news operations starts PTI service launched for subscribers in UK
1986, February PTI-TV launched
1986, April PTI-Bhasha launched
1986, August Experimental broadcast of news and pix via Insat-IB begins, Computer system made fully operational
1987, August Stockscan I launched
1987, October PTI photo service launched
1992, August PTI Mag launched
1993, August PTI Graphics service launched
1995, March PTI launches StockScan II
1996, February PTI invests for the first time in a foreign registered Company, Asia Pulse, which provides an on-line data bank on economic opportunities in Asian countries
1997, December PTI introduces photo-dial up facility
1999 March PTI celebrates Golden Jubilee. PTI goes on internet
2003, September PTI launches internet delivery of its news and photo services
THE STORY OF PTI IS VIRTUALLY THE STORY OF INDEPENDENT INDIA.
The run-up to Independence had also thrown up ideas of running free India’s own national news agency as an objective disseminator of information about a resurgent nation, freed of the foreign yoke. “The evolution of the concept of a national news agency was the direct consequence of the spirit of independence that swept the country since the days of the Quit India Movement. “The desire to shake off the imperial domination in the field of news supply was at the heart of this evolving thought,” said Ramnath Goenka, the fearless press baron and freedom fighter.
After two years of consultations and planning among senior journalists, newspaper proprietors and national leaders like Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, free India’s first national news agency, the Press Trust of India, was incorporated in Madras on August 27, 1947. This was within a fortnight of what Jawaharlal Nehru described as India’s “Tryst With Destiny” at the historic central hall of Parliament on the night of August 14-15.
Though PTI began its operations in 1949, its origin goes back to the early years of the 20th Century when its forerunner - the Associated Press of India (API) - was launched by an enterprising Indian, Keshab Chandra Roy.
The first Indian to function as a Political Correspondent at the British imperial capital, Roy was a high-school dropout who made a success of a journalistic career and rose to be a nominated member of the Central Legislative Assembly as a distinguished journalist. Working for more than one newspaper at a time, including The Tribune of Lahore, the Indian Daily Mail of Bombay and the Amrita Bazar Patrika of Calcutta, Roy found it easy to have a news pooling arrangement with European journalists to carry on with his work. It was from this experience that the idea of a news agency grew in Roy’s mind. Soon he collaborated with three of his professional colleagues - Usha Nath Sen, Durga Das and A.S. Iyengar - to float and run API.
Though the exact time of its birth is somewhat hazy, according to the book ‘Reuter’s Century: 1851-1951' by Graham Storey, it was started in 1910. K C Roy finally gave up in 1919 his brave effort to run an Indian-owned domestic news agency and Reuters became the sole supplier of foreign and domestic news to the government and to the newspapers of India.The London-based Eastern News Agency, owned by Reuters, merely used the name Associated Press of India. API was to be registered as a private limited company, wholly owned by Reuters, much later in September 1945. The seven men who subscribed initially to the shares of PTI were K Srinivasan, Editor, ‘The Hindu’, Madras, Khasa Subba Rau, Editor, ‘Swatantra’, Madras, S.S Vasan, Editor, ‘The Anandavikatan’, Madras, S. Sadanand, Managing Editor, ‘Free Press Journal’, Bombay, C.R. Srinivasan, Editor, ‘Swadesamitran’, Madras, A.A. Hayles, Editor and Director, ‘The Mail’, Madras and S.V. Swamy, Editor, ‘Free Press’, Madras.
Recalling PTI’s takeover of the news operations of the erstwhile API, Goenka wrote: “Sadanand and I were happy that PTI eventually took over the operations of API from February 1, 1949. We were, however, unhappy with the package in terms of which PTI became a junior member of Reuters which retained its monopoly of distributing international news to Indian newspapers.” PTI, registered in 1947, took over news operations from API from February 1, 1949. “When PTI emerged a free agent in 1953, we felt as happy as Jawaharlal did at the end of the interval between India’s attainment of dominion status and its emergence as a Sovereign Republic - an interval during which he chafed at having to couch communications to His Majesty in the phraseology of a subject addressing his liege.
February 1,1949, PTI has reported India’s history as it happened, blow by blow, in the best traditions of news agency journalism, with speed, accuracy and objectivity. The first general elections of free India in 1952, the first Asian Games a year earlier, the war with China in 1962, Pandit Nehru’s death in 1964, the great split of the Indian National Congress in 1969, the 1971 war with Pakistan culminating in the birth of Bangladesh, India’s first nuclear test in 1974, the emergency in 1975, terrorist violence in Punjab in the 1980s, assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 as well as the stirring events of the 1990s, were all reported in detail by PTI journalists, most of them in anonymity.
In the last 50 years, PTI has come a long way, growing in size and stature as the oldest and largest among news agencies of the countries that became free after World War II.
PTI’s Golden Jubilee
“We got independence in August 1947. But independence in news and information, we got only with the establishment of PTI in 1949. That is the significance of PTI and its golden jubilee” President K R Narayanan , chronicling history from partition to the historic bus journey by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Lahore as it happened, PTI celebrates its Golden Jubilee this year. The celebrations were flagged off by the President Mr K R Narayanan by releasing a commemorative stamp on March 5th at the agency’s headquarters in New Delhi.
The Rs 15 multi-coloured and multi-lingual stamp on PTI depicts the Agency’s journey from ticker-tape printers to satellite transmission. According to the Department of Posts, it’s for the first time that an Indian stamp has seven languages. On the 10th of March Vice-President Krishan Kant inaugurated a 12-day Photo-exhibition PTI-Offbeat, tracing the evolution of the Agency’s photo-service and showcasing some of the best moments captured by our lensmen ‘on’ and ‘off the beat.’ The grand old lady of Indian Photography, Homai Vyarawalla was the guest of honour at the exhibition. It will later travel to Calcutta, Madras and Mumbai during the year long cleberations. Celebrating the power of the camera to capture images of the coming generations, the Agency also brought out a coffee-table book “PTI-Offbeat - A Candid View of Everyday Life”.
This was released by the Prime Minister Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the 11th of March.
The highlight of the celebrations, however, was a two-day international seminar on “Information without Frontiers — Breaking Barriers or Invading Cultures” inaugurated by Mr Vajpayee. A host of leading media personalities, bureaucrats and jurists deliberated on subjects like ‘IT Revolution : Impact on Media’, ‘Culture Clashes : Impact on Art, Culture, Theatre and Way of Life’ and ‘Media : Ethics and Responsibility’. The Agency also brought out a Souvenir on the occasion.
Remember News Agencies Are Not Newspaper Syndicates!
Newspaper syndicate also called Press Syndicate, or Feature Syndicate, agency that sells to newspapers and other media special writing and artwork, often written by a noted journalist or eminent authority or drawn by a well-known cartoonist, that cannot be classified as spot coverage of the news. Its fundamental service is to spread the cost of expensive features among as many newspapers (subscribers) as possible.
Press syndicates sell the exclusive rights to a feature to one subscriber in each territory, in contrast to the wire news services (news agency), which offer their reports to all papers in a given area.
Some syndicates specialize in such entertainment features as comic strips, cartoons, columns of oddities or humour, and serialized novels. Typical syndicated features are columns of advice on child rearing, health, running a household, gardening, and such games as bridge.
History Of Newspaper Syndicates
Syndicates came into being in the United States at the end of the Civil War. Individual features, however, had been syndicated as early as 1768 in the Journal of Occurrences, which was circulated by a group of “Boston patriots.” The syndicate filled a need among rural or small-town weekly and daily papers for material that would help them compete with big-city papers.
Three syndicates were in operation in 1865, supplying miscellaneous feature news items and short stories.
In 1870 Tillotson & Son, publishers in Bolton, Eng., began to supply some British papers with serialized fiction. By 1881 Henry Villard, a reporter for the Associated Press (AP), had founded his own syndicate in Washington, D.C., and was soon sending material to the Cincinnati Commercial, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Herald.
About 1884, Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun formed a syndicate to sell short stories by Bret Harte and Henry James. Samuel S. McClure launched a similar venture in the same year. He first offered fiction and secured the rights to several stories by Rudyard Kipling. He also helped to introduce the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others into the United States. The features offered at that time were mostly literary material and pictures.
An important change came in 1896, however, when the big New York City Sunday newspapers began to produce and publish comic pages. In 1907 the comic strip was introduced in daily papers. This form of art gradually changed the whole character of the business and made it more profitable.
The strips were shipped in matrix form to the subscribers for simultaneous publication. Originally, they were truly “comics” in that they were intended to make readers laugh, but later many became continued stories with no humour.
When Bud Fisher's “Mutt and Jeff” was first bought and published in England in 1920, many British readers scoffed at the idea. It proved successful, and British editors later originated many strips in competition with the American products. By the late 1950s American comic strips were being translated into several languages and sold all over the world.
Many writers, photographers, and graphic artists syndicate their own materials. Some newspapers with especially strong resources syndicate their own coverage, including news, to papers outside their own communities. Examples include the New York Times, with major resources in every news department, and the defunct Chicago Daily News, which was known for its foreign coverage. Papers sometimes syndicate as a team with another newspaper—e.g., the Los Angeles Times–Washington Post syndicate.
