News Services

News services now encompass what were once separate, but related, links in the information channels. News services include organizations such as the Associated Press (AP), clipping services, and organizations like PR Newswire. Generally speaking, news services provide unfiltered news information. These services gather information from many sources and then make it available to newspapers, broadcast news organizations, and magazines for a fee. Because of their linking role in the information dissemination process, public relations practitioners for media relations target news services. Practitioners target their media releases to news services that may pick up the story and disseminate it to their clients. Thus, news services allow practitioners a means to reach a larger pool of news outlets.

The AP is an organization for pooling information (text and photos) among member newspapers. If a big story in New York City occurs, a San Francisco newspaper that is a member of the AP does not have to worry about getting a reporter to New York City. Rather, the San Francisco paper can simply look for copy and photos from an AP member New York City newspaper.

Internet technologies have made it easier for an organization like AP to exist. Instead of members having to rely on traditional wire or broadcast technologies to move information, they simply go to the AP website and upload or download text and photos.

Clipping services, in their traditional form, have been in decline due to the increasing presence and use of the Internet. Traditional clipping services [Page 607]were very handy in culling particular information. If a person was interested in articles on U.S. steel production across multiple media channels (say, newspapers, magazines, and nonprofessional journals), the clipping service did all the dirty work. They would have subscriptions to a wide variety of publications and employed researchers to copy information from sources at public libraries. The service would then pull all of the elements together in one package and send out a hard copy. Later, clipping services would employ the latest wire and wireless technologies.

The concept behind clipping services is alive and well. Although the Internet has made accessing various news channels easier, the number of news channels has grown by orders of magnitude. Combined with the declining (shrinking) presence of print media, the rise of the Internet, and the end user's (consumer's) increased access to sophisticated search tools (like Atom and RSS Web feeds), the need to cull information is ever increasing.

An example of new technology intersecting the traditional clipping service is Google News, where Google is applying their search engine technology to news stories available across online sources.

Another element to news services is organizations like PR Newswire, a public-interest news wire service. PR Newswire has a similar “look and feel” to services offered by an organization such as the Associated Press. However, it must be stressed that PR Newswire is not a news reporting organization. Rather, it is waypoint for the distribution of press releases and related material. The types of organizations that use PR Newswire for distribution include the federal government, Congress and cabinet-level agencies; political campaign organizations; foreign embassies; associations, unions, advocacy, and civic groups; universities, think tanks, and research organizations; and public relations, public affairs, and law firms. PR Newswire also provides content to media, public relations, and news services including Google, Yahoo! News, and America Online (AOL).

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