News agency

A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.

There are many news agencies around the world, but there are global news agencies with offices in most countries of the world and cover all areas of information: Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters. All three began with and continue to operate on a basic philosophy of providing a single objective news feed to all subscribers; they do not provide separate feeds for conservative or liberal newspapers. Jonathan Fenby explains the philosophy:

History

Only a few large newspapers could afford bureaus outside their home city. They relied instead on news agencies, especially Havas in France and the Associated Press in the United States. Former Havas employees founded Reuters in Britain and Wolff in Germany; Havas is now Agence France-Presse (AFP). For international news, the agencies pooled their resources, so that Havas, for example, covered the French Empire, South America and the Balkans and shared the news with the other national agencies. In France the typical contract with Havas provided a provincial newspaper with 1800 lines of telegraphed text daily, for an annual subscription rate of 10,000 francs. Other agencies provided features and fiction for their subscribers.

Wire Service

Wire Service is an American drama series that aired on ABC as part of its 1956-57 season lineup.

Synopsis

Wire Service focuses on three reporters for the fictional Trans-Globe wire service, which was similar to (and obviously inspired by) real-life news wire services such as the Associated Press and United Press International. It was the first hour-long, weekly scheduled dramatic series with continuing characters to last a full season on network television. However, the three reporters functioned independently of each other, meaning that the series was essentially three different ones sharing a time slot and title.

This program was aired at 9 p.m. (Eastern time) Thursdays from September 1956 to February 1957, when it was moved to Mondays at 8:30. It was not renewed for a second season, and the last prime time broadcast under this title was in September 1957. However, when a gap developed in the ABC schedule in February 1959, the episodes starring Dane Clark (only) were then rebroadcast under the title Deadline for Action. The last of these repeat episodes was broadcast on September 13, 1959.