News-Distributing Companies Or Associations

( Originally Published 1913 )

SEVERAL years ago there were established associations made up, owned, and controlled by the newspapers subscribing for their services. These associations maintain offices in the principal cities, and employ several thousand men, comparatively few of whom are on the office staffs. Each association has its head, who receives a large salary, probably not far from ten thousand dol-Iars a year ; and territorial or branch managers, who are paid from two to five thousand dollars annually.

Each office maintains a staff of editors, whose duties are to edit or revise the news which is sent in.

The association employs one or several men in every large city, and the rest of the country is divided into districts, one or more men being responsible for each district.

The so-called " home " editors, and their assistants, give their entire time to the work of the association; but the majority of the news-gatherers are reporters connected with local news-papers. These reporters send to the nearest branch office, or to the head office, usually by wire, everything which is supposed to be of interest to the readers of a section or of the whole of the country.

For example : a news-gatherer located, say, at Springfield, Mass., will telegraph to the association office, in Boston, any event occurring in Springfield or vicinity, which he thinks would interest the inhabitants of Massachusetts, or of New England, or of the entire country. If the news he sends in is not likely to be of interest to other than Massachusetts readers, the Boston office will not telegraph it to any papers outside of the state. If it is of more than state interest, it is sent, in whole or in part, to newspapers located outside of the state, and even to those on the Pacific coast.

The branch or head office may be considered a hopper, into which is thrown the news coming from thousands of reporters located in as many cities, towns, or districts. This office adapts the news to the newspapers which are members of the association, sending the news in its entirety to certain newspapers, and half, or even less, of it to papers farther removed. The association is really a distributing institution, receiving the news of the world, usually by wire, and distributing it to its members, giving each newspaper the amount which it is entitled to.

Each newspaper pays to the association an amount per week based upon the average number of words it receives. This service costs the great newspaper a thousand or more dollars a week, while the smaller newspaper may not pay more than forty-five or fifty dollars for the news it receives. Where there is more than one news-paper belonging to the association in a town, the news is written by the use of carbons, the same matter being sent to each paper.

The reporters connected with these associations either work upon salary or at space rates. If upon salary, they receive from two hundred to even two thousand dollars a years and five dollars or more per column, if they are space men.

Most of the general and telegraphic news appearing in the large newspapers comes from an association, although the great newspaper frequently carries special telegraphic news, which no other newspaper receives until after the newspaper paying for it has published it.

By this arrangement, or system, the newspaper can obtain the news of the world at a very much lower cost than would be possible if its news was collected or obtained by reporters or correspondents connected with it.

The managers of these associations, and their assistants, are invariably journalists of wide experience, and some of them may have been editorial writers.