International Distribution of News

Based on newly available and extensive archival evidence, this book traces the history of international news agencies and associations around the world from 1848 to 1947. Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb argues that newspaper publishers formed news associations and patronized news agencies to cut the costs of news collection and exclude competitors from gaining access to the news. In this way, cooperation facilitated the distribution of news. The extent to which state regulation permitted cooperation, or prohibited exclusivity, determined the benefit newspaper publishers derived from these organizations. This book revises our understanding of the operation and organization of the Associated Press, the BBC, the Press Association, Reuters, and the United Press. It also sheds light on the history of competition policy respecting the press, intellectual property, and the regulation of telecommunications.

'Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb further advances our understanding of news agenda history from business, information economics and political economy perspectives. Based on thorough archival research, including extended research in the Reuters archives in London and the AP corporate news archives in New York, the volume offers a new and valuable perspective on the development and operation of news agencies over the century between 1848 and 1947 … It provides an original and insightful analysis of the structure and operation of news markets, both domestic and international, and is well grounded in existing literature on the subject.' Media History, 'This study of the first century of major world news agencies goes over ground that others have described … but is updated here with the aid of much newly available archival evidence … The insightful comparison of issues and players in the United States and Britain helps shed light on both countries.' Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 'An ambitious, meticulously researched book that successfully integrates business and media histories. It skilfully weaves a large volume of archival material into a convincing synthetic explanation of the making of an Anglo-American-led global news distribution system … Essential reading for specialist readers interested in news, information management, state-media relations, or business organization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.' Mark Hampton, The American Historical Review

Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2009, and is Senior Lecturer in History at Keble College, University of Oxford.