NEWS AGENCY. An agency which supplies news to periodi cals, clubs, associations, or private persons, by telegram, in manuscript, proof, by tape machine or duplicated; less frequently by telephone. A news agency does not itself publish news but supplies information privately to its subscribers.
(2) Local Agencies. In a number of middlesized towns there are news or reporting agencies such as the Bradford Press Bureau or the Aberystwyth News Agency, whose object is not merely to serve the local press with news of every kind but to take in some measure the place of a local correspondent for the lesser London dailies. Agencies of this class and the first frequently send in unsolicited information, to be paid for if and as used. Agencies of the two following classes rarely do so.
(3) Technical Agencies. These, such as the Aviation News Agency, the Commercial Press Telegram Bureau, the Hockey Reporting Agency, explain their function by their names. They are mostly situated in London, and they necessarily appeal to a limited clientele; but some, especially the sporting agencies, are very considerable enterprises.
(4) National Agencies. Infinitely the most important form of news agency is the national agency, both from the range of its activities, the size of its staff and its powerful and subtle influence in the press. Of these, though the name of the British United Press is occurring more and more frequently in the columns of London dailies, there are but four of prime importance : the Press Association Ltd., which deals only with home affairs, Reuters' Ltd., which deals only with foreign affairs, the Central News Ltd.,
and the Exchange Telegraph Company Ltd., both of which cover both fields.
Use of News Agency Material. An inexperienced reader may well be surprised when he finds that a high percentage of the general news in two supposedly hostile dailies is given in identically the same phrasing, word for word and comma for comma. A closer investigation will disclose, either prominent or hidden in the second or third sentence, an ascription to the Exchange, Reuters, or Central News: if there is none, the "copy" is probably Press Association matter. It is now true that the material from which is made up a high proportion of those papers which do not, like the Times or the Observer, maintain a very large staff of correspond dents, is identical : the scope of the editor and subeditors is now largely confined to the selection and presentation of mate rial which has been presented in identical form at the same minute to every other London office. The task of a newspaper staff is con sequently nowadays no longer exclusively the procuring of news but very largely the cuisine of standard material which arrives automatically. The influence of the agencies has been severely attacked as limiting the freedom of the press. The sources of information are narrowed and it is stated that there is more pos sibility of bias or suppression. On the other hand, as will be shown, the field of information is far more effectively "covered" than was possible last century.
All newspapers rely chiefly on the agencies for the receipt of what may be called formal or expected news such as university intelligence, market returns or city quotations. In the same cate gory, to a large extent, fall many ministerial statements, which are often circulated through the Press Association or other agencies. Such circulation obviates the calling together of some scores of reporters to hear precisely the same words ; moreover, an experienced politician, though he may add in an interview extra details for the papers he desires to favour, will not make his general statement until he is assured that the agency representa tives are present, as through them he can speak to the whole British and much of the Colonial press.