Agence France-Presse

Development

The modern French news service grew out of the century-old Havas agency. Havas had been reorganized during the 1940–44 German occupation as the French Information Office (FIO). Following on similar earlier actions in Algiers (after the allied invasion of North Africa in late 1942), French Resistance journalists took control of FIO offices and personnel on the liberation of Paris in August 1944. To make clear the change in control that had taken place, they began to issue wartime news dispatches under a new name—Agence France-Presse. At the end of September of that year, AFP took over the facilities [Page 53]and some of the staff of the old, now discredited, Havas service, and became a provisional public cor-poration—essentially, an arm of the government.

AFP's initial job was to rebuild the global news-gathering network once enjoyed by Havas. That they were at least partially successful was indicated in March 1953 when AFP broke the news to the West of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death. By 1957, AFP had 25 bureaus across France and nearly 60 overseas bureaus (the first in China opened a year later), 13 of them based in what were for a few more years French colonies in Africa and Asia. AFP correspondents were active in 116 countries and the agency distributed news to 73 nations, all of it coordinated at the Paris headquarters. It enjoyed a near monopoly on service to newspaper and broadcast clients within France, though some larger newspapers also subscribed to other agencies, chiefly the AP or Reuters.

However, the AFP remained under the effective control of the government, with only a provisional charter. In an attempt to provide it with greater organizational stability and independence, the basic law under which the AFP operated was revised in January 1957. It defined fundamental principles that guaranteed the independence of the agency and freedom of operation for its journalists. Article 2, for example, stated “Agence FrancePresse may not under any circumstances take account of influences or considerations that would compromise the accuracy or objectivity of the news; it must not under any circumstances pass under legal or de facto control of an ideological, political or economic group.” The law remained in effect a half century later. Yet indirect government support (in the form of subscriptions for service from government agencies) remained essential to AFP's survival even if it did somewhat limit the agency's freedom of action to critique government policies.

The use of satellite transmission began in 1971. A year later The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times agreed to distribute AFP service in the United States—an important breakthrough to the world's largest news market. By 1979, AFP operated 108 bureaus and had a presence in 167 countries. Total employment was just under 2,000 people. Depending on the technology utilized (cable teleprinter or satellite), total agency output was between 1.1 and 1.3 million words daily. An audio news service was launched in 1984 and a photo service just a year later. A news graphics service appeared in 1988.

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