A Brief Look at Associated Press Services and the New Internet Based News Agency
News is something that someone somewhere wishes to hide; in fact, advertising is just about the only thing that is visible to the majority of people. In this light, it should come as no surprise that most newspapers and magazines have turned to a self-publication model in an effort to stay afloat during the current economic crisis. While these publications have made great efforts in attracting new customers through the various news segments and features, they have not been able to overcome the public’s distaste for advertising and would therefore be struggling to continue.
The problem with news is that it is usually bad news. Most people simply cannot stand having their taxes and utility bills asked for time and again. They cannot stand having their children threatened with public education and healthcare underfunded. They simply cannot stand having their job cut or their income reduced to the point where they are forced to live on less than minimum wage.
As such, news is something that appeals only to a particular group of people. Therefore, a news story which tells the terrible consequences of not paying your debts will not make much appeal to anyone else. This means that a news report from Fox News, stating that Barack Obama wants to take away the ability of American citizens to protect themselves from executive order six, may make little appeal to anyone except Tea Party supporters. It is for these supporters that a recent editorial in the New York Times made clear that it is simply not worth the public’s attention to learn that the president wants to give up his power to a left-wing radical fringe group that wants nothing more than to gut the executive order and raise taxes in order to pay for their unsecured debt.
The best way to avoid this situation is to ensure that all news agencies remain entirely independent. While it is true that many newspapers and magazines do receive funds directly from their suppliers, these sources need to be thoroughly checked to make certain that their impartiality is not compromised. In the past, this has meant that the news services have had to hire reporters who were either members of the Associated Press organization or the World Federation of Newspapers and News Agencies. Today, there are numerous news services which receive their news material from sources which are not members of either the APA or the WFNA.
These new internet based news agencies have begun to provide content which is completely independent of both the APA and the WFNA. Therefore, it can be safely said that the type of news that the APA provides has been greatly reduced since the distribution of Associated Press materials began to decline. In addition to this, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of news agencies which are no longer associated with the APA and the other associated press organizations. Some of the first casualty of this move to provide content which is not AP material was the Financial Times, which had long been a very large member of the APA. However, in recent years a number of other news agencies have also joined the fray, thereby reducing the number of newspapers worldwide which are associated with the APA.
Many of the new news agencies which are now providing content on the internet are simply news agencies which are owned by individual freelance journalists rather than being part of an entity such as the APA or the WFNA. As an example of this kind of a news agency, there are a number of freelance publishers which operate solely online, in contrast to the major news agencies which are part of the larger news organizations, but still provide news items which are AP style. This means that anyone interested in getting any kind of news from the world today can simply log onto the internet and find the appropriate news sources from the comfort of their own home. This has significantly reduced the cost of news distribution, particularly for smaller news agencies which had to rely on donations and grants in order to keep the publications going.