International Television News Agencies

For over half a century, a small set of London-based companies have either created or globally distributed most of the iconic television images of international events. These journalists play a leading role in shaping how we understand the world, yet there has been little study of them and their practices. This book attempts to rectify this gap by providing the first comprehensive study of how television news agencies work, and describing a system of news production which has shaped our shared visual history since the 1950s. Spanning over twenty years of data gathering, document analysis, video content analysis, news production ethnography, and interviews, the book discusses their crucial role as agents of globalization, how they manufacture our image of the world, and their dangerous work providing images of conflict. The book is a tribute to this small and largely unknown tribe of journalists, but is also a warning that the public might better understand the power and potential harm of the system in which they operate.

«An insightful analysis of the unsung superpowers of global TV news.» (Martin Bell, Former Member of Parliament and former BBC War Correspondent) «Chris Paterson has given us the long-awaited and only in-depth account of the two London-based operations that today furnish most of the international news footage on which a large proportion of the global television-viewing audience of the world depends. This is a hugely important contribution to what we know about the television news agencies. Paterson strikes a judicious balance between his critique of the selective and questionable news choices and frames that govern the live news and news packages that these two western organizations provide, on the one hand, with his admiration for the routine ingenuity and heroism of these agencies’ journalists and managers. His work includes intriguing and detailed accounts of how the news agencies’ predictions and planning, together with their deployment and integration of relatively scarce resources, fundamentally shape which stories get to be told and how they are told. The book will be a key reference for researchers for many years to come.» (Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Professor of Journalism, Bowling Green State University) «[…] offers a rare and revealing glimpse behind the scenes of the world’s two most powerful television news agencies.» (Stephen Jukes, Dean of the Media School at Bournemouth University and former Global Head of News at Reuters), «An insightful analysis of the unsung superpowers of global TV news.» (Martin Bell, Former Minster of Parliament and former BBC War Correspondent) «Chris Paterson has given us the long-awaited and only in-depth account of the two London-based operations that today furnish most of the international news footage on which a large proportion of the global television-viewing audience of the world depends. This is a hugely important contribution to what we know about the television news agencies. Paterson strikes a judicious balance between his critique of the selective and questionable news choices and frames that govern the live news and news packages that these two western organizations provide, on the one hand, with his admiration for the routine ingenuity and heroism of these agencies’ journalists and managers. His work includes intriguing and detailed accounts of how the news agencies’ predictions and planning, together with their deployment and integration of relatively scarce resources, fundamentally shape which stories get to be told and how they are told. The book will be a key reference for researchers for many years to come.» (Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Professor of Journalism, Bowling Green State University) «[…] offers a rare and revealing glimpse behind the scenes of the world’s two most powerful television news agencies.» (Stephen Jukes, Dean of the Media School at Bournemouth University and former Global Head of News at Reuters)

Chris Paterson is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds. He co-edited International News in the 21st Century (2004) and two editions of Making Online News (2008 and 2011). Paterson is an adviser to Newsdesk.org, and is co-founder of the Working Group on Media Production Analysis of the IAMCR.