News agency

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A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to organizations in the news trade: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. They are also known as wire services or news services.

News agencies can be corporations that sell news (e.g. Reuters and All Headline News (AHN)), cooperatives composed of newspapers that share their articles with each other (e.g. AP), commercial newswire services which charge organizations to distribute their news (e.g. [Eworldwire],Market Wire, Business Wire and PR Newswire). Governments may also control "news agencies," particularly in authoritarian states, like China and the former Soviet Union or non-profit organizations operated by both professionals and volunteers. Australia, Britain, Canada, and many other countries also have government-funded news agencies. A recent rise in internet-based alternative news agencies like Scoopt, as a component of the larger alternative media have emphasized a "non-corporate view," as being largely independent of the pressures of business media.

News agencies generally prepare hard news stories and feature articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used telegraphy; today they frequently use the Internet). Corporations, individuals, analysts and intelligence agencies may also subscribe. The business proposition of news agencies might thus be responsible for the current trends in separation of fact based reporting from Op-eds.

[edit] Notable international news agencies

Agence France-Presse
All Headline News (AHN)
Agencia Internacional de Noticias
ANP (The Netherlands)
ANSA (Italy)
ANTARA, Indonesia
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia (Italy)
Associated Press
Associated Press of Pakistan - Not associated with AP
Australian Associated Press
BASA-press (the first independent news agency from The Republic of Moldova)
British Broadcasting Corporation
Belga news agency (Belgium)
Bloomberg L.P.
Canadian Press
Canadian University Press
China News Service, China
City News Bureau of Chicago
Cox Enterprises
DPA (Germany)
EFE, Agencia EFE
Indymedia, Independent Media
ITN, Independent Television News
Interfax
Inter Press Service Global news agency featuring development news
ITIM - Israel
ITAR-TASS, Russia
Kyodo News (Japan)
Maghreb Arab Press (Morocco) (aka La MAP)
Nippon News (Japan)
NZPA (New Zealand)
OANA
The Press Association (UK)
Pacific News Service
Petra (Agency) (Jordan)
Power and Interest News Report
Press Trust of India
QHA, Ukraine
Reuters
United Press International
Xinhua News Agency, China
Yonhap, Korea

News agencies are distinct from news syndicates that distribute comic strips and other editorial material, such as columns and features, and also from PR services that distribute press releases. Sometimes news agencies have separate arms for such work, but many such organizations are completely separate.

These are Organisations which gather news and feature stories and send them out to client newspapers. They may send them through telegraph wires like the Philippines News Agency (thus the term wire service) or like Depthnews, they may mail them out to the client newspapers.