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, clipping services, and U.S. Newswire. Generally speaking, news services provide unfiltered news information. These services [Page 570]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, news services are targeted by public relations practitioners for media relations. 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 Associated Press (AP) started out as an organization for pooling information (text and photos) among member newspapers. If there is a big story in New York City, a San Francisco newspaper would not have to worry about getting a reporter to New York City. Rather, the San Francisco paper would simply look for copy and photos from a New York City newspaper.

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

Clipping services have been in decline due to the increasing presence of the Internet. Clipping services 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 non-professional journals), the clipping service did all the dirty work. They had 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.

Clipping services may make a comeback. Although the Internet has made accessing various news channels easier, the number of news channels has grown by orders of magnitude. There is an interesting new take on the clipping service, called Google News. Google News can be found on the Internet at http://news.google.com. This site is currently in beta, meaning that it is functional but its form and ability are not finalized. Google is applying their search engine technology to the culling of news stories.

The last element included in news services is represented by U.S. Newswire, a public-interest news wire service. U.S. Newswire has a similar “look and feel” to services offered by an organization such as the Associated Press. However, it must be stressed that U.S. Newswire is not a news reporting organization. The types of organizations that use U.S. 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. U.S. Newswire also provides content to media, public relations, and news services including America Online (AOL), and Yahoo! News. In 1999, U.S. Newswire merged with Medialink Worldwide, Inc. The Web address for U.S. Newswire is http://www.usnewswire.com/index.html.

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