The Associated Press
It is worth while to explain how the world's news is gathered and furnished in a newspaper issued at one cent a copy. First, as to the foreign news, which is, of course, the most difficult to obtain and the most expensive. In normal times there are the four great agencies which, with many smaller and tributary agencies, are covering the whole world. These four agencies are, as above noted, the Reuter Telegram Company, Ltd., of London, which assumes responsibility for the news of the great British Empire, including the home land, every colony except Canada, and the Suzerain, or allied countries, as Egypt, Turkey, and even China and Japan; and the Agency Havas of Paris, taking care of the Latin countries, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland and South America as well as Northern Africa; and the Wolff Agency of Berlin, reporting the happening in the Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Slav nations. These three organizations are allied with The Associated Press in an exclusive exchange arrangement. Subordinate to these agencies is a smaller one in almost every nation, having like exchange agreements with the larger companies.
Thus it happens that there is not a place of moment in the habitable globe that is not provided for. Moreover, there is scarcely a reporter on any paper in the world who does not, in a sense, become a representative of all these four agencies. Not only are there these alliances, but in every important capital of every country, and in a great many of the other larger cities abroad there are "A.P." men, trained by long experience in its offices in this country. This is done because, first, the organization is naturally anxious to view every country with American eyes; and, second, because a number of the agencies spoken of are under the influence of their Governments and, therefore, not always trustworthy. They are relied upon for a certain class of news, as for instance, accidents by flood and field, where there is no reason for any misrepresentation on their part. But where it is a question which may involve national pride or interest, or where there is a possibility of partisanship or untruthfulness, the "A.P." men are trusted.
Now, assume that a fire has broken out in Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, on the banks of the Ganges, and a hundred or a thousand people have lost their lives. Not far away, at Allahabad or at Calcutta, is a daily paper, having a correspondent at Benares, who reports the disaster fully. Some one on this paper sends the story, or as much of it as is of general rather than local interest, to the agent of the Reuter Company at Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras; and thence it is cabled to London and Hongkong, and Sydney and Tokio. At each of these places there are Associated Press men, one of whom picks it up and forwards it to New York.
The wide world is combed for news, and an incredibly short time is delivered and printed everywhere. When Pope [Leo] XIII died in Rome the fact was announced by an Associated Press dispatch in the columns of a San Francisco paper in nine minutes from the instant when he breathed his last. And this message was repeated back to London, Paris, and Rome, and gave those cities the first information of the event. When Port Arthur was taken by the Japanese in the war of 1896 it came to us in New York in fifty minutes, although it passed through twenty-seven relay offices. Few of the operators transmitting it knew what the dispatch meant. But they understood the Latin letters, and sent it on from station to station, letter by letter.
When Peary came back from his great discovery in the Arctic Sea he reached Winter Harbor, on the coast of Labrador, and from there sent me a wireless message that he had nailed the Stars and Stripes to the North Pole. This went to Sydney, on Cape Breton Island, and was forwarded thence by cable and telegraph to New York.
The organization is cooperative in its character. As a condition of membership, each one belonging agrees to furnish to his fellow-members, either directly or through the Association, and to them exclusively, the news of his vicinage, as gathered by him for his own paper. This constitutes the large fountain from which our American news supply is drawn. But, as in the case of the foreign official agencies, if there be danger that an individual member is biased, or if the matter be one of high importance, our own trained and salaried staff men do the reporting. For this purpose, as well as for administrative work, there is a bureau in every leading city.
For the collection and interchange of this information we lease from the various telephone and telegraph companies, and operate with our own employees, something like fifty thousand miles of wires, stretching out in every direction through the country and touching every important center. To reach smaller cities, the telephone is employed. Everywhere in every land, and every moment of every day, there is ceaseless vigil for news.
People frequently ask what it costs thus to collect the news of the world. And we cannot answer. Our annual budget is between three and four million dollars. But this makes no account of the work done by the individual papers all over the world in reporting the matters and handling the news over to the agencies. Neither can we estimate the number of men and women engaged in this fashion. It is easy to measure the cost of certain specific events; as, for instance, we expended twenty-eight thousand dollars to report the Martinique disaster. And the Russo-Japanese war cost us over three hundred thousand dollars.
Such is an outline of our activities in what we call normal times. But these are not normal times. When the great European war broke on us, eighteen months ago, all of the processes of civilization seemed to go down in an hour. And we suffered in common with others. Our international relations for the exchange of news were instantly dislocated. We had been able to impress the governments abroad with the value of an impartial and unpurchasable news service, as opposed to the venal type of journalism, which was too common on the European continent. And in our behalf they had abolished their censorships. They had accorded us rules assuring us great rapidity in the transmission of our messages over their government telegraph lines. They had opened the doors of their chancelleries to our correspondents, and told them freely the news as it developed.