News Agency – the real Bishop in media business
What exactly a News Agency is all about? A news agency, according to UNESCO is “an undertaking whose principal objective, whatever its legal form, is to gather news and news material of which the sole purpose is to express or present facts, and to distribute this to a group of news enterprises, and in exceptional circumstances to private individuals, with a view to providing them with as complete and impartial a news service as possible against payment, and under conditions compatible with business laws and usage.”
In the mid – 1990s, however, that definition of a news agency sounded rather outdated. Transnational agencies today are big corporations or more precisely profit seeking organizations making their profits largely from the sale of financial and market data provided to clients around the globe; the commercial clients far outnumber news enterprises. Besides, the kind of “facts” they present are highly selective, of primary interest to the world of trade and commerce in the West, and thus, are in no way “complete” and “impartial”.
The services the agencies provide are not just text, but also audio, video clippings, photography etc. Why News Agencies are so important? The news agency does not deal directly with the public. It functions through the intermediary of the other means of mass communication, namely, the press, radio and television and web portal.
Essentially, it plays the role of a wholesale supplier of news. The media depend on material distributed by the news agencies mainly put of economic necessity. In order to have a wide coverage the newspaper has to maintain a very dearer network of staff reporters, correspondents, offices, bureaus, and latest telecommunication gadgets on a worldwide scale. It is a common phenomenon that many newspapers specially in the underdeveloped and developing countries cannot even afford to maintain a proper network of correspondents within their own country of operation. Only a few newspapers and big television channels having a stupendous TRP (Television Rating Points) can afford this mammoth investment and recurring expenditure. In this part, the news agencies do play the role of a messiah.
For a majority of the news media, the news agencies are a major source of news supply. The subscribers to the news agencies include the daily or weekly newspapers, magazines, the radio and television, web portals, offices and institutions, particularly govt. agencies, large corporations, in the private and public sector, bank and commercial establishments etc. The news agencies account for 40-50 percent of the total content of a daily paper, and it is also almost 35-45 percent to its audio-visual counterpart. For many of the medium and small newspapers of the third world countries, those who cannot afford to have a large number of reporters at outstations, news agencies supply the huge chunk of news, sometimes even 100 percent.
The news agencies contribute almost 40 percent of news into the government owned or controlled media mostly in the developing and underdeveloped nations, the rest being from its own correspondents. Unquestionably, the agencies are playing the most important part in the booming global media business.
Role of News Agencies in a Democratic Set-up- The role of news agencies in a democracy (where the so called free press is omnipresent) is very crucial. There are some basic principles, which should govern the functioning of news agencies in a democratic set-up. Following ate those principles.
1.There should not be any monopoly of one single news agency. Competition is always healthy in this case.
2.The news agencies should not participate in ownership, nor have any voice in the control of agency either editorially or administratively.
3.Financial help in the form of loans etc. should be given by the government but without any strings.
4.The set-up of the news agencies should be a public corporation formed on the basis of co-operative or joint efforts of newspapers, other users, and interests.
5.In functioning, they should keep in view the overall interests of state and society. They should abide the laws of the country, as well as by the code of professional conduct.
6.There must be a system for coverage of foreign news by the agencies’ own correspondents at major foreign capitals.
7.They should provide adequate coverage of local and regional news and meet the requirements of the regional newspapers.
8.The agencies should provide different types of services- complete or comprehensive, brief and summary to different categories of subscribers.
9.The tariff should be devised that the subscribers are charged in equitable manner, or according to the use made of the service.
10.The news coverage should be fast, objective, comprehensive, and accurate.
11.In selection of news, the agencies should have a sense of integrity and non-biased nature. Selection should be based on the basis importance and priority attached to individual facts. All relevant facts of significance should be reported.
12.The news agencies should not have any specific editorial policy. The agencies should avoid giving views and comments while covering a story.
13.The agencies, in delivering news, should be fair to different points of view. The views of dissidents should be treated fairly and equitably in respect to length and coverage.
14.News agencies should be free from biasness. They should also be immune to pressure from any quarter- government, or big business, proprietarily.
15.Up to the last extent, news agencies should be viable. Now let us discuss about the stalwart News Agencies of the world. Their contributions are stupendous in the media industry vis-à-vis media business. Reuters Named after its founder Julius Reuter, who started in London in 1851, Reuters has specialized in financial and commercial information from the very beginning. Reuters got together with Havas and Wolff in 1870 and the three agencies signed a treaty to divide the world market among themselves. Eventually, subsidiary agencies joined them, but accepted the leadership of the three. This altered the process of news dissemination throughout the Europe and its colonies in Asia and Africa.
Reuters is the second –largest news and television agency after AP, with about 2,000 journalists and a total of 26,000 employees in 185 bureaus .The ownership of the agency now rests with the Reuters Holding Company.
The Associated Press [AP] The Associated Press serves more than 15,000 news organizations worldwide with news, photographs, graphics, audio and video materials. It claims that more than a billion people read, hear or see AP supplied news every day. AP has a digital photo network that supplies 1000 photos a day worldwide to 8,500 international subscribers and, since 1995, a 24-hour continuously updated online news service called the Wire. There are, in addition, a television news service (APTN) and AP Network News, the largest single radio network in the US. AP’s various services are available in German, Swedish, Dutch, French and Spanish. Subscribers in other language areas translate AP stories into their own language. Agence France-Presse (AFP) The Paris-based Agence France-Presse, the third largest news agency in the world, is not far behind AP and Reuters. It originated as the Havas Agency in the 19th century.
AFP also supplies news to the media and corporations including banks and governments. Subsidized by the French government, AFP distributes 2 million words a day, 250 news photographs and 80 graphics in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic and Portuguese. AFP is especially strong in the coverage of the Middle East and Africa. It has regional centers in Washington, Hong Kong, Nicosia and Montevideo. Above all the news agencies in a democratic society should provide complete, unbiased, objective, accurate, countrywide and competitive news services free from slant, pressure, nepotism, or interference from any source or quarter. It has to guard against the threat of being dominated by any vested interests- economic, social, communal or political. Unquestionably the importance of news agencies in today’s media business is unputdownable. You can like or dislike but you can’t ignore their pivotal role for the fourth estate.
Debanjan Banerjee Senior Lecturer in Media Studies in a leading Indian University. A Columnist and an Academician having more than twelve years of experience in the field of Journalism and Academics. Contributed numerous articles on diversified subjects in leading Indian journals, newspapers, magazines, and a frequent contributor of articles in internationally reputed websites. The author can be contacted at www.nshm.com, www.psis.co.in
debanjan.mediaguru@gmail.com