Reuters, AP, UP, UPI, Bloomberg and AAP

This page highlights the news services, increasingly an example of online publishing in its purest form with real-time delivery of information and commercial access to substantial archival databases.

     Reuters

Reuters dates from a text news service founded by Julius Reuter. In the second half of last century it expanded to encompass television news and has become increasingly prominent as a provider of real-time and archival financial information services, in competition with Dow Jones and Bloomberg.

As of 2000 the group employed around 2,150 journalists, photographers and camera operators in 190 bureaus, serving 151 countries. Overall staffing was 18,082 people in 204 cities in 100 countries, with group revenues of US$5.4 billion.

The Power of News: The History of Reuters (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 94) by Donald Read is a concise corporate history of the information company.

A chronology of the group is here.

   UP and UPI

There's a more panoramic view in Jonathan Fenby's The International News Services (New York: Schocken 86) and Robert Desmond's The Information Process: World News Reporting to the Twentieth Century (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 78).

For US wire services see Richard Schwarzlose's The American Wire Services: A Study of Their Development as a Social Institution (New York: Ayer 79) and his The Nation’s Newsbrokers: The Formative Years: From Pretelegraph to 1865 (Evanston: Northwestern Uni Press 89) and The Nation’s Newsbrokers: The Rush to Institution: From 1820 to 1920 (Evanston: Northwestern Uni Press 90).

Oliver Gramling's AP:The Story of News (New York: Farrar Rinehart 40) and Joe Morris's Deadline Every Minute: The Story of the United Press (Garden City: Doubleday 57) have a nice period flavour. Down to the Wire: UPI's Fight for Survival (New York: McGraw-Hill 90) by Gregory Gordon & Ronald Cohen is a useful supplement to Schwarzlose.

United Press (and United Press International) was established in the US by the Scripps newspaper chain to compete with Associated Press.

A chronology of the US services is here.

   Syndication

For the early history of US syndication services see Charles Johanningsmeier's Fiction & the American Literary Marketplace: The Role of Newspaper Syndicates, 1860-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni y Press 97).

   Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg's Bloomberg By Bloomberg (New York: Wiley 97) is a brash account of the financial information services empire built by former corporate banker and current New York mayor Bloomberg. Judging by his account he has never made a mistake.

Based in New York, Bloomberg employs over 7,200 people (including 1,100 reporters) in 9 sales offices, 2 data centers and 80 news bureaus worldwide. It is extending from electronic provision of financial data - primarily through its proprietary devices - to general news services, business television, syndicated radio content and professional publishing (Bloomberg Books, Bloomberg Wealth Manager, Bloomberg Money, Bloomberg Markets, On Investing).

   AAP

Pointers to information about Australian Associated Press (AAP) are under development.

AAP was founded in 1935 as a co-operative news gathering organisation for 14 newspaper members (notably the Herald & Weekly Times group - later absorbed by Rupert Murdoch's News - and the Fairfax group). In 1947 it formed an alliance with Reuters. In 1950 it made a similar alliance with AP. In 1970 it launched its Stockmaster financial data service and began marketing the Reuters data service in 1975. In 1997 it floated its telecommunications service - AAPT. It is currently 44.74% owned by Fairfax and 44.74 by News, with the remainder by other groups.

   Havas

The Havas and Wolf news services are dealt with here.




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