International news-agencies, such as Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, have long been ‘unsung heroes’ of the media sphere. From the mid-nineteenth century, in Britain, the US, France and, to a lesser extent, Germany, a small number of agencies have fed their respective countries with international news reports. They informed governments, businesses, media and, indirectly, the general public. They helped define ‘news’. Drawing on years of archival research and first-hand experience of major news agencies, this book provides a comprehensive history of the leading news agencies based in the UK, France and the USA, from the early 1800s to the present day. It retraces their relations with one another, with competitors and clients, and the types of news, information and data they collected, edited and transmitted, via a variety of means, from carrier-pigeons to artificial intelligence. It examines the sometimes colourful biographies of agency newsmen, and the rise and fall of news agencies as markets and methods shifted, concluding by looking to the future of the organisations.

This book traces the history of international news agencies and associations around the world from 1848 to 1947. Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb argues that newspaper publishers formed news associations and patronized news agencies to cut the costs of news collection and exclude competitors from gaining access to the news.

This book overviews and reconsiders media organizations - the news agencies - which report and film the news for the press and broadcast media. Incorporating institutional, historical, political economic and cultural studies perspectives, the book: reviews agency provision of general news, video news and financial news; analyzes agency-state relations through periods of dramatic social upheaval; and critically examines the impact of deregulation and globalization on the news agency business. Contributors consider how leading players like Reuters and Associated Press help to define the nature of both the Global and the Local as well as focusing on the network of relations between international and national agencies. The book

Deals with a very important business in global communication of news -- the news agencies. The first news agencies started their business when the fastest technology was a combination of telegraph and carrier pigeon. They have survived several technological developments since then and have used these technologies for further diversification of services and revenues. The Internet, some thought, will make the news agencies extinct like dinosaurs. But, well run news agencies found a new opportunity in this threat. Though there have been some corporate biographies of news agencies, there has not been any comprehensive analytical work in the past 25 years on this business. This book is an attempt to fill this void in the global literature on journalism, media studies, international communication and business management studies. Besides, the students of these academic disciplines, diplomats, policymakers, and all types of communication professionals will find this book useful. It will also be a good read for lay persons who unconsciously consume the products of news agencies through all types of media -- from newspapers to mobile phones.

"Kevin Williams has authored an account of "foreign" correspondence and international journalism that is the most comprehensively-sourced, inclusive, contextualized, timely and critical in its field. At last, we have an account that acknowledges that the largest employers of "foreign" correspondents for nearly two hundred years have been and continue to be the news agencies; that the occupation is rooted in a history of imperialism, post-colonialism and commercialization, whose vestiges today are all too apparent; that the impacts of so-called "new media" on the amount, range and quality of international news, while significant, are less dramatic and less positive than commonly supposed." - Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University, Ohio What is the future of the foreign correspondent - is there one? Tracing the historical development of international reporting, Kevin Williams examines the organizational structures, occupational culture and information environment in which it is practiced to explore the argument that foreign correspondence is becoming extinct in the globalized world. Mapping the institutional, political, economic, cultural, and historical context within which news is gathered across borders, this book reveals how foreign correspondents are adapting to new global and commercial realities in how they gather, adapt and disseminate news. Lucid and engaging, the book expertly probes three global models of reporting - Anglo-American, European and the developing world - to lay bare the forces of technology, commercial constraint and globalization that are changing how journalism is practiced and understood. Essential reading for students of journalism, this is a timely and thought-provoking book for anyone who wishes to fully grasp the core issues of journalism and reporting in a global context.