Abstract
This book provides an extensive history of major international news agencies headquartered in the West like Reuters (RTRs), Agence France-Presse (AFP), Associated Press (AP), and to a lesser degree United Press (UP), International News Service (INS), later merged to United Press International (UPI), Western Associated Press (WAP), Press Association (PA) and Wolffsbüro later known as CTC. Referred to as ‘unsung heroes’, international news agencies are news organisations that inform every sphere of society, including the media, governments and businesses. The book also x-rays the ‘institutional’ and often colourful lives of prominent news agency figures and retraces their relations with one another, with competitors and clients, and the types of information, and data they collected, edited and transmitted, via a variety of means, from carrier-pigeons to artificial intelligence. It further explains how these correspondents navigated the geopolitics of the respective period under study, the importance of technology and money, their reporting and writing styles and their interrelationship with statesmen, politicians, businessmen, diplomats and media people.
The book is compartmentalised into 13 chapters.
In Chapter 1, the book retraces how news agencies began by focusing on the first international news agencies that emerged in the 1830–1850s. The chapter is divided into four subheadings: Paris, Early 1830s: Charles-Louis Havas Opens a News Bureau; Electric Telegraphy: Britain, Germany, the US, France; PJR: Reuter; and in the USA: Beginnings of AP and The New York Daily Times. The chapter draws attention to the history of The London Times from its inception in 1785 as the Daily Universal Register, to its renaming to The Times in 1788, and becoming a leading London daily. Palmer attributes The Times’ lasting reputation to its editorial independence, the rapidity and reliability of its foreign news reporting, rising sales and advertising revenues. This chapter also explores the beginning and rise of foreign correspondence and news agencies and the ‘founding fathers’ Paul Julius Reuter (PJR) in London, Charles-Louis Havas (CLH) in Paris, France and Bernhard Wolff in Germany. The origin of the Associated Press (AP) with a focus on Daniel Craig (1811/1812–1895) and Laurence Gobright (1816–1881) is similarly examined.
Some of the factors that facilitated the emergence of these news agencies, their characteristics, the problems they encountered and the relationship of these news agencies with their governments and businesses are also highlighted. Other features of this period included: (1) the immense cost involved and the long time it took to transport mail through boat, ponies or carrier pigeons, as well as trains. (2) The cultural and national prejudices as well as the demand for transatlantic news fuelled by conflicts and wars. (3) The difficulty in recording and deciphering information. (4) The political exigencies of the period. Palmer argues that to strengthen their position in their home or domestic markets in Europe, Reuters, Havas and Wolff jointly pooled and provided factual news services promptly through the increasing use of the telegraph in 1859 although they remained competitive.
Chapter 2 focuses on the relationships of the three leading European agencies, Havas, Reuters and the Wolffsbüro (later CTC) with each other, their governments and their clients, and the status and operations of their ownership in the age of the empires in the period 1848–1914. It also examines the career of some prominent Reuters’ personalities like Sigmund Engländer (1823–1902) and James Hencksher (1834–1909). This chapter also explores the relationship between AP and New York newspapers and New York Associated Press (NYAP); the implications of the completion of transatlantic cable linking Europe to Brazil in 1874 on Havas’ dominance of South America; how the agencies responded to censorship, propaganda and the high cost of telegraph; their writing styles; how the increased use of electric telegraph changed foreign and war correspondence as well as the focus on disasters such as fires, explosions, floods, storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks, riots, duels, murders and suicides of important personalities. Some of the challenges the news agencies experienced in this period are also discussed such as the rivalries between them; the allegations of plagiarism, malpractices, corruption, monopoly, purported manipulation of journalists by governments through bribes and privileged access to sources; and the commercialisation of news due to the high cost of running them.
Chapter 4 examines how World War I negatively affected the major European agencies but favoured the US agencies and changed the international news dynamics in South America, and to a lesser extent in Africa and Asia. This chapter also explores how South America became an agency battleground between Havas, CTC, AP, UP and Reuters; how news from a Europe at war and in revolution were reported by these agencies; and AP’s Edwin Hood’s (1858–1923) contributions to the development of factual reporting. This period was characterised by propaganda and censorship pressures, new technologies, the near absence of factual reporting, copyright issues, the legal tussle in the United States and the financial implications of war.
Chapter 5 focuses on the inter-war years and the end of the cartel. Palmer argues that the end of World War I signalled the emergence of new news agencies mostly privately owned. The chapter explored the impact of the armistice, the Versailles peace conference and the creation of the League of Nations as well as the beginning of a new world, built on the ruins of the old. Palmer also explores the beginning of the end of ‘ring arrangements’ with news agencies focusing on the far East as a testing ground; the increasing adoption of short-wave transmission by international news agencies and diversification into radio and cinema; the implications of the PA-Reuters merger of 1925 prompted by fears that the consolidation of British radio interests would lead to a monopoly; and some major international news stories of the mid-1930s and their characteristics. While examining the work of the Japanese scholar Tomoko Akami who used news propaganda to study Japanese news agency history in this chapter, Palmer argues that ‘the complexities of Chinese internal politics, coupled with Japanese incursions into China have affected the strategies adopted by news agencies – whether international, like Reuters and the AP or national/local’ (p. 99).
Chapter 6 explores how World War II and the Cold War affected the international news agencies and how they operated in the age of censorship and propaganda. Palmer discusses the institutional fate of major international agencies in the Western world such as AP, UP(I) Reuters and AFP, and how their fortunes differed greatly during World War II and fluctuated with the ebb and flow of those of the three combatant Western nations. For example, this chapter examines how Havas news was wound up and replaced by a state news agency, OFI, while there were many attempts by a variety of French Resistance movements to prepare for a new independent agency; Reuters’ chequered history; the war coverage of US international agencies and the expansion of AP as US power increased worldwide; and how Agence France-Presse (AFP) was established. This chapter also points out the contributions of international correspondents like AFP’s Jacques Marcuse (1911–1986), Reuters’ Doon Campbell (1920–2003) and John Peet (1915–1988) to international news.
In Chapter 7, the author retraces the history of AP and its US rivals; the reduction of the number of major international news agencies headquartered in the West from five to four – AP, Reuters, AFP and UPI; the challenges UPI faced and its gradual demise; AP’s operations and growth; and the advent of news-film for television stations. This chapter covers the late 1940s–early 1980s.
Chapter 8 also deals with this period but with a focus on AFP and Reuters. Topics include Reuters’ financial difficulties against the backdrop of change in international news flow as new national agencies emerged such as TASS and Xinhua, the growing strength of US agencies worldwide, the diversification of services by agencies and relationships with postcolonial nations. It also traces the history of UNESCO, the iconic debate on international news flow labelled New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO); the setting up of the MacBride commission by UNESCO for the international study of communication problems and Reuters’ executive Gerald Long’s crusade against UNESCO. Palmer describes the mid-1950s–late 1970s as a turning point because of the advent of communications technology, and large-frame computers that improved the collection, editing and transmission of general news, which caused disquiet among traditional agency journalists.
Chapter 9 examines the impact of Bloomberg on international news reporting, including the strategies adopted by other news agencies like Reuters and AFP to meet the challenges brought about by the entrance of Bloomberg into the international news market; the fall in revenues due to cutting prices and job cuts to meet stiff competition; how financial news, data and trades increasingly gained in importance because of globalisation; the relationship between journalists and their management; the skills needed for agency staff, and the venture into TV news, international photo service, Internet, video and on-line services. The author also discusses the coverage of the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars.
Chapter 10 studies the coverage of politics by news agencies especially political campaigns by the AP and Reuters as its operations expanded in the United States. This chapter focuses on the challenges posed by the 2000 US Presidential elections between Republican G. W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
In Chapter 11, Palmer then describes 1980–2000 as the decisive years for Reuters by looking into its launch as a limited liability company in 1984; its fall from grace; its acquisition by the Canadian-owned Thomson corporation in 2007–2008; and the strategies the new company adopted to face the challenges. The author chronicles the tough competition with Bloomberg with its application of artificial intelligence; the better access to US financial market sources in the 1980s–1990s; and a more hard-headed, better funded, and strategic vision, with major inroads into regions where Reuters was once supreme, like the Middle East and Africa; and Reuters’ careless embrace of the Internet without a clear strategy, resulting in a loss of financial and banking clients. Palmer examines the measures taken by Reuters’ executives to counter the challenges posed by the rapid growth of Bloomberg, which included overseeing a major restructuring of management; continuous re-organisation and cost-cutting measures; abolishing Reuters’ world regions to focus on product lines; mobilisation of company employees through strategy discussions and team-building exercises; and a refocus on core activities.
In Chapter 12, the author highlights some of the issues ignored by the international news agencies such as an international coding ‘language’, Yugoslavia and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and bombardment of Afghanistan. This chapter also discusses the role of the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) and the news agencies played during a few key events such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster as well as the collapse of the Lehman Brother’s bank as a trigger of the international financial crash in 2008.
Chapter 13 offers a summary of the book. It also debates the impact of ‘churnalism’ (Nick Davies, 2008, Flat Earth News) and new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. Palmer similarly considers the various agency strategies he wrote about 50 years ago, which he argues are still applicable today, namely ‘Objectivity vs dependence; Free enterprise and competition vs coalition and cooperative; Maximum profit vs non-profitmaking; Client diversification vs niche markets; Domestic market vs international market; “Cutting edge” technology vs minimum technology’ (Boyd-Barrett and Palmer, 1981: 245–246).
In writing this book, the author draws upon information from archival materials such as journals, news copy, products and editorial/management materials; books by or about newsmen; style guides and in-house assessments of output; the research of historians of news and the media in the United States and across Europe, interviews with agency journalists and management executives. These research methods have greatly enriched this book and provided a very extensive history of international news agencies.
Nonetheless, the book is not without its limitations. Although Palmer acknowledges the advantage of examining ‘the applications of technological innovations sector by sector, medium by medium – newspaper, radio, photo, news film, TV’ (p. ix), he does not adopt this approach in this book. Since technological advancement is key to understanding the operations of international news agencies, this is a major limitation. Another limitation is information overload in some of the chapters. The overlapping of timeframes in some chapters has similarly compounded the confusion in understanding some issues under discussion. The absence of the views and perspectives of newswomen while conducting the interviews for the book coupled with some structural issues could have also been prevented.
This comprehensive history of the leading news agencies based in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States from the early 1800s to the present is a very good repository of information about major international news agencies: the conditions that facilitated their emergence; how they started; the language and styles they used; key political, government, top executives, businessmen and correspondents; the factors that facilitated their rise and fall as markets and methods shifted; their struggles and triumphs, the rivalries and competitions among them; and the very many colourful lives of the key figures that have made international news agencies what they are today. I recommend this book to students, researchers, scholars of international news or fans of this genre of journalism.