News agency

“ He, too, may telephone the bare facts to have them written in news-story form by a rewrite man in the newspaper office. The correspondent of a general news-gathering agency handles his news in the same way except that he sends it by mail, telegraph, or telephone to the district office of the association or agency that he represents. ”

“ Article 14 A foreign journalist or permanent office of a foreign news agency shall conduct journalistic activities within the scope of business as registered or within that of the mutually agreed plan for news coverage.
Foreign journalists and permanent offices of foreign news agencies must observe journalistic ethics and may not distort facts, fabricate rumours or carry out news coverage by foul means. ”

“ A point is made of the fact, however, that the Associated Press is the largest of the news agencies, ranking 'in the forefront in public reputation and esteem' and constituting 'the chief single source of news for the American press, universally agreed to be of great importance.' A unique value is said to attach to Associated Press news reports, growing out of the fact that they are furnished by an agency com osed of and controlled by newspapers representing nearly every shade of opinion and geographical section of the nation. ”

“ Whenever a permanent office of a foreign news agency needs a change of its head, a change in the size of its staff and other important changes, it shall submit an application to the Information Department, obtain the latter's approval and go through the necessary registration procedures for the change. ”

“ While originally the newspaper depended entirely on its own reporters and correspondents for news, and still largely does so, the widening of the field of modern journalism is largely due to collective enterprise, by which outside organizations known as “news agencies” send a common service of news to all papers which arrange to take it. The first of the great collecting and distributing news agencies, Reuter's Agency, was founded by Julius Reuter, a Prussian government-messenger, who was impressed by the common interest roused by the revolutionary movements of 1848. ”

“ The news of the world is collected and distributed by the Associated Press as the co-operative agency of the big papers, and through them it reaches the country papers. Any legislation which cuts the revenue of the big papers will reduce their ability to perform this necessary function. Every editor needs to keep informed of affairs and opinion in the country at large. ”

“ There had been an investigation by the President of the United States of one of America’s greatest industries, and I had been tacitly commissioned to make the results known to the public, for the benefit of the public, whose physical health was at stake. I came to the great press association, an organization representing at that time some seven hundred newspapers, with scores of millions of readers, hungry for news. The Associated Press was the established channel through which the news was supposed to flow; and in this crisis the channel proved to be a concrete wall. ”

“ Day after day the Press Bureau, of course under official inspiration from higher sources, issues statements in which the good news is unduly emphasised and the bad unduly slurred over. Day by day a large section of the Press helps on, with every ingenious device of big type and sensational headlines, the official hoodwinking of the public. Many pay their nimble halfpennies to be gulled. ”

“ Gathering News.—The prospective reporter who supposes that newspaper men wander aimlessly up and down the streets of a city, watching and hoping for automobiles to collide and for men to shoot their enemies, will have his eyes opened soon after entering a news office. He will learn that a reporter never leaves the city room without a definite idea of where he is going. If newspapers had to police the streets with watchers for news as the city government assigns officers of the law, the cost of gathering news would be prohibitive. ”

“ In large cities, like New York and Chicago, the gathering of all the official or routine news is done by a central news association which furnishes each paper that belongs to the association or which pays for its services, with a mimeographed copy of every news story that its reporters secure in covering all the usual runs. ”

“ The average reporter, under the pressure of a constant demand for news, would just as soon chat with a disgruntled subordinate officer and print his story as to search for reliable information from a safe source. ”

“ Who controls the dissemination of news? Is the press totally, uncompromisingly devoted to the unbiased presentation of all news insofar as possible? Is it possible for groups with special interests to put pressure on the press and on our other means of disseminating information, such as the radio and the screen, and to what extent? ”

“ The newspaper not endowed with an Associated Press franchise must wait for twenty-four hours or more for its copy of the document.
Hardly less important is the fact that in every city, town, and village in the country, the Associated Press has its agent—the local editor or the telegraph operator, or some one else—who is commissioned to report to it [303] every news happening that may arise within his bailiwick. Often these reports are interesting; sometimes they are of importance, and in either case the newspaper not allied with a press association must miss them. ”

“ Anything interesting of this kind has always a value for some one so long as it can be kept secret and the only way in which a newspaper can counteract this tendency is to keep in touch or be introduced to other parties, who may be interested in disclosure. The ordinary published items of business news, failures, amalgamations, flotations, etc., are on the same footing as official news and come into the newspaper office of themselves. ”

“ We share these facts with the people of all nations in the belief that knowledge of the truth underpins the functioning of free societies.
Who uses The World Factbook?
A wide variety of folks including US Government officials, researchers, news organizations, corporations, geographers, teachers, professors, librarians, and students. In short, anyone looking for an expansive body of international data on a recently updated Web site.
The World Factbook is a one-stop reference site. ”

“ In organizing its news collecting, the newspaper only takes advantage of information filed for various official purposes by many different persons in no way connected with the newspaper. Policemen, firemen, sheriffs, coroners, and practically all officials of local, state, and national governments, as well as doctors, lawyers, and merchants are all unintentionally serving as reporters of news. ”

“ Truthful and accurate must be the material which the public relations counsel furnishes to the press and other mediums. In addition, it must have the elements of timeliness and interest which are required of all news—and it must not only have these elements in general, but it must suit the particular needs of each particular newspaper and, even more than that, it must suit the needs of the particular editor in whose department it is hoped that it will be published. ”

“ The reporters and correspondents of the press associations work under practically the same conditions as the newspaper’s own correspondents, but they are responsible to the division head of the press association, whereas the newspaper’s correspondents are under the direction of the telegraph editor or of the state editor of the paper. The work of news gathering is not essentially different, whether done by a reporter or by a correspondent in the employ of a newspaper or of a news-gathering association. ”

“ Where the State creates and controls communications, subsidizing them, is it not nonsense to speak of the press—the communications-based news industry—as independent of the State?
What Is News?
Still more deeply hidden is a curious twist in the character of news itself. What is news? A well-worn “gag” accurately describes the publishing industry’s concept. “If a man bites a dog, that’s news.” There is nothing unexpected, nothing unusual, nothing sensational about a dog biting a man; hence, that isn’t news. In short, an accurate picture of what is happening is not news. ”

“ All I wanted was to get out.
"And now we bring you that popular round-table discussion of events of the day, News and Newsmen," the radio said, "featuring the men who edit the news for leading papers and wire services. Tonight our subject is 'Monolithians—Friend or Foe?' and our panel consists of Russell Sidenam, city editor of the World-Telegram; Barton Pascal, reporter on the Daily News; Herb Small, from the world desk of the Associated Press; and Sam Kent, assistant editor of the New York bureau of World Wide News...." ”

“ Podcasting is recording and broadcasting any non-musical information—be it news, radio shows, sporting events, audio tours, or personal opinions—usually in MP3 format for playback using a digital audio player. ”

“ Accuracy of Presentation.—One very definite caution must be given concerning the organization of the story,—the necessity of presenting facts with judicial impartiality. When the reporter is arranging his material preparatory to writing, casting away a note here and jotting down another there, he can easily warp the whole narrative by an unfair arrangement of details or a prejudiced point of view. Frequently a story may be woefully distorted by the mere suppression of a single fact. A newspaper man has no right willfully to keep back information or to distort news. ”

“ Although some men refuse to be “interviewed” over the telephone, it is often possible to get “interviews” more easily by this means than by any other. Reporters, or “watchers,” at [Pg 49] police headquarters and at other news sources telephone important information to the city editor so that he may assign men to get the news involved. When lack of time prevents the reporter from returning to the office to write his story, he telephones the facts to a “rewrite man,” who puts them in news-story form. ”

“ In such departments of a modern newspaper as the City, Telegraph, Sporting, Financial, etc., the work of the reporters and editors is to chronicle and present the actual news. If nothing of vital interest has happened during the day, that is not their fault. ”

“ The Associated Press from the time of its organization and establishment in business sold the news reports to various newspapers who became members, and the publication of that news became of vast importance to the public so that public interest is attached to the dissemination of that news. The manner in which that corporation has used its franchise has charged its business with a public interest. ”

“ Just as fast as the daily press advances in real independence and efficiency, the compensation of journalists will increase, until a great reporter will receive a reward in some slight degree proportioned to the rarity of the species and to the greatness of the services of which he is the medium. By reporters, we mean, of course, the entire corps of news-givers, from the youth who relates the burning of a stable, to the philosopher who chronicles the last vagary of a German metaphysician. ”

“ Our news, therefore, is largely set in motion by telegraphic operators, by agents trained to regard only the accidental, the startling, the abnormal, as news; it is picked up by sharp prowlers about town, whose pay depends upon finding something, who are looking for something spicy and sensational, or which may be dressed up and exaggerated to satisfy an appetite for novelty and high flavor, and who regard casualties as the chief news. ”

“ I do not pretend to know, but what I do know is that many of the direct channels to news have been closed and the information for the public is first filtered through publicity agents. The great corporations have them, the banks have them, the railroads have them, all the organizations of business and of social and political activity have them, and they are the media through which news comes. ”

“ The reporter must distinguish the difference between publishing a story gained from a stranger by dint of shrewd interviewing, and printing the same story obtained from a fellow club-man more or less confidentially over the cigars and coffee. The stranger's information the reporter must publish. No newspaper man has a right to suppress news obtained while on duty or to accept the confidence of anyone, if by such confidence he is precluded the right to publish certain facts. The publication or non-publication of such news is a matter for the city editor's decision alone. ”

“ Many a society leader plans receptions and dinners of which the florist learns before the friends who are to be invited. And by skilfully encouraging the friendship of these tradesmen, a shrewd reporter can obtain exclusive facts about prominent persons who cannot understand, when they see their names in the morning paper, how the information was made public. These "dark runs" justify diligent attention. They produce news, and valuable [Pg 41] is the reporter who can include successfully a number of such sources in his daily rounds. ”

“ It is for the story that all other features of the newspaper exist.
No matter what branch of newspaper work one may eventually enter, training gained as a reporter will be invaluable. The men who reach executive positions in a newspaper office without having served a reporter’s apprenticeship are rare exceptions. Practically all who have attained high rank in journalism began work as gatherers of news. ”

“ The fact that a newspaper does not order a story or orders less than the correspondent offers does not necessarily imply that his news judgment is questioned. Stories that ordinarily would be used may be crowded out by a rush of news of greater importance. One story like that of the San Francisco earthquake and fire will cause the omission or rigid condensation of news that usually would be “featured.” Sometimes the correspondent’s story is not ordered because the facts are covered in the reports of a news gathering organization as fully as the newspaper desires. ”