Havas [since succeeded by France-Presse] controlled the French Empire, Switzerland and all the Latin countries, including Italy, Spain, Portugal and those in South America. [Also the Balkans.]
To Wolff [later D.N.B. or the Deutsches Nachtrichten Buro] fell the Scandinavian states, with Russia and all the Slav nations. Austria also came under the jurisdiction of the German agency.
A Conflict Is Born
Reuters used its control frankly in the interest of the British Empire and of British business interests. Havas and Reuters combined to carry stories that would tend to ridicule American manufactures and America, but they refrained from such handling of Britain and France respectively. All over the world, news from America was top-heavy with Indians on the warpath, lynchings in the South, bizarre crimes in the North. Havas headed off American business competition with France in South America—a Havas exclusive territory—by stories belittling U.S. automobiles and other products. (Very reminiscent, one may note, of the American news industry’s deliberate belittling of Soviet industrial products and skills and planning, propaganda that misled even our highest authorities prior to Stalingrad.)
Anglo-French ridicule was gall and wormwood to American Big Business as it moved more and more into competition for world markets, world influence and world power. It was more immediately vexing to Associated Press but A.P. never went outside the gentlemanly bounds of the conspiracy. It used the cartel as a club to beat back United Press and other would-be rivals at home.
Nevertheless, an ultimate conflict between A.P. and Reuters was inevitable. The United States was building up industrial might and developing resources to overtake and pass Great Britain in the race for world power. This was somewhat obscured, for the general observer, by the rather more aggressive challenge of Germany. Germany, too, had built up a modern industrial productive apparatus far greater than that of Britain. It found the world already divided. Markets, raw materials, the slave labor of colonies and their investment opportunities, had been “parcelled out” among Britain, France and their satellites: Holland, Belgium, Portugal. British and French guns were levelled against any suggestion of sharing the plunder with the newcomers. So German imperialism levelled its guns, too, and World War I was on.
Peak of Reuter’s Power
With Britain and France and Germany engaged in worldwide warfare while the United States (until 1917) stood on the sidelines, Reuters, Havas and Wolff were severely handicapped. Even under peacetime conditions they could not compete with the American agencies on a commodity-news basis. Their official or semi-official character restricted their freedom of action and of judgment. The moment something really important happened in Europe, they would hesitate, under official pressure. For example, when the Nazis murdered Austrian Premier Dollfuss, Havas sent nothing for hours while the Quai d’Orsay debated how French-controlled areas should be informed of this event, how it should be interpreted. The “officialese” in which such events were reported sometimes achieved peaks of silliness. A dispatch to New York from Havas bureau in Beirut, Syria, in 1934, said:
French governor visited hinterland first time since elections. On every hand he was greeted with enthusiasm by populace which thanked him for all France had done to relieve food crisis. Extremists threw a few bombs but vigorous police measures reassured people.
Reuters was no less one-sided in its devotion to British interests, and the national agencies of the smaller States were doubly handicapped. On the one hand they were mere creatures of Reuters-Havas; on the other, they were bound out to the service of their own State. The mere listing of the national agencies dancing to the Reuters-Havas tune establishes the political significance of the cartel. They were: Amtliche Nachrichtenstelle, Austria; Agence Telegraphique Belge, Belgium; Agence Telegraphique Bulgars, Bulgaria; Bureau de Presse, Czechoslovakia; Ritzaus Bureau, Denmark; Agence Telegraphique Esthonienne, Esthonia; Finska Notisbyran, Finland; Athena, Greece; Nederlandsch Telegraaf Agentschap, Holland; Agence Telegraphique Lettone, Latvia; Agence Telegraphique Hongroise, Hungary; Stefani, Italy; Kokusai, Japan; Avola, Yugoslavia; Agence Telegraphique Lithuanienne, Lithuania; Norsk Telegram-Bureau, Norway; Agence Telegraphique Polonaise, Poland; Rador, Rumania; Rosta, Russia; Fabra, Spain; Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, Sweden; Agence Telegraphique Suisse, Switzerland; Anatolie, Turkey.