National and International News Agencies

Abstract

National news agencies tend not to excite the same scholarly or even the same popular attention as the international or `global' news agencies. Yet both international and national news agencies contribute to the simultaneous processes of globalization and localization. The number of major general news international agencies has reduced in recent years, while national news agencies are faced with a broad range of difficult challenges that may threaten the future viability of at least some of them. These challenges particularly have to do with relations between agencies and media owners, relations between agencies and the state, changes in the composition of the market as a result of growing media commercialization, concentration and globalization and new sources of competition in the supply of news. The range of possible defensive strategies includes diversification, redefining the relationship between national news agencies and national identity, linking up with the new global media conglomerates, partnerships between agencies, identification of new models for relating to the state and reassessment of the respective benefits and weaknesses of the cooperative model of news agency organization.