News wire services in the nineteenth-century United States

Journal of Historical

Geography, 7, 2 (1981) 167-179

News wire services in the nineteenth-century United States Susan R. Brooker-Gross

News wire services were established in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century to gather and distribute news for local newspapers, using the new technology of the telegraph. With that early beginning in the era of electronic communication, the expansion of news wire services spans the change from a society of local communities to a more nationally integrated society. This paper assesses the importance of changes in the medium’s spatial organization which promoted national culture. The first wire services were local, ad hoc groups, organized to achieve greater efficiency in newsgathering. Formal services were first organized on a local basis, but in 1848 they began to sell news to the major urbanized portions of the United States. As the nation grew, the desire for greater efficiency conflicted with the desire for greater autonomy. Regional wire services persisted from the 1860s to the 1880s but after the 1880s a tenuous national organization was achieved, cementing itself into a national system after the turn of the century. Efficiency in news collection was the primary reason for the increasing scale of news collecting groups. Each step toward larger spatial coverage, fed the growth of a complex interdependent urban system.

During the nineteenth century, the United States changed from a society of fragmented local communities to a more cohesive nation. News wire services, relying on the new telegraphic technology, were catalysts in this change, enabling rapid nationwide diffusion of news information. Yet news wire services were themselves organizations caught in the emotional shift from local autonomy to national efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to explicate relationships within and between wire service organizations which resulted in the increasing scale of news wire service spatial structure. Organization of formal wire services

The telegraph did not spontaneously create news wire services, but as the telegraphic network expanded and its reliability increased, news editors not only found it useful, but discovered that timeliness in reporting was enhanced by cooperating with other local newspapers.tll Between cities, co-operation among newspapers was also promoted as a method to speed the news to all.r21 Early [l] Local co-operation has been reported in New York City, R. A. Schwarzlose, Early telegraphic news dispatches: forerunner of the AP Journalism Quarterly 51 (Winter 1974) 597-9; in Boston, J. E. Chamberlain, The Boston Transcript: a history of its first hundred years (Boston 1930) 95-6; and in Cleveland, A. H. Shaw, The Plain Dealer: one hundred years in Ckueland (New York 1942) 90 [2] J. C. Andrews, Pittsburgh’s Post-Gazette (Boston 1936) 129; S. N. D. North, History and present condition of the newspaper and periodical press of the United States with a catalogue of the publications of the census year (Washington D.C. 1884) 106; New York State Associ-

ated Press Papers 1846-7, Oneida Historical Society, Utica, New York. I am indebted to Richard A. Schwarzlose for making this and other notes available to me 030557488/81/020167+

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co-operative efforts were sporadic and ad hoc, but they presaged the institutionalization of news wire services, and were the first steps away from strictly local control over newsgathering. By 1846, the New York State Associated Press (NYSAP) formalized the previous co-operative efforts of nineteen upstate New York newspapers, becoming the first formal news wire service. Similarly, in New York City co-operation was formally organized into the Harbor News Association and later into the New York Associated Press (NYAP).[ll By 1848, the NYAP had expanded from a local co-operative to a profit-seeking organization which sought to sell news throughout a broader region. As soon as cities were connected to the telegraph system, Daniel Craig actively solicited their newspapers’ business for the NYAP. He later complained of slow progress, saying “It required several years to force our news reports on to the editors of the country”,t21 yet by 1858, known client and agent locations were already widely spread (Fig. 1). Craig was also engaged in

Figure I (left). Known agents and clients of the New York Associated Press, 1858. Sources: Jones, Electric Telegraph, 104; Schwarzlose, American wire services, 39 Gramling, AP, 27, 29; Rosewater, History, 67, 71, 87, 96; Harlow, Old wires, 193; Shaw, Plain Dealer, 2; Jordan Confederate Press Association, 1; data gathered by author from Ohio newspapers. Figure 2 (right). Cities represented Press, Indianapolis, 1862. Source: Rosewater, History, 114.

at the initial meeting of the Western Associated

[l] R. A. Schwarzlose, Early telegraphic news dispatches; R. A. Schwarzlose, Harbor News Association: the formal origin of the AP Journalism Quarterly 45 (Summer 1968) 253-60 [2] P. R. Knights, The Press Association war of 1866-67 Journalism Monographs 6 (Austin, Texas 1968) 9; A. F. Harlow, Old wires andnew waves: the history of the telegraph, telephone and wireless (New York 1936) 196

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persuading financiers to back telegraph lines, thereby enlarging the NYAP’s potential market.[ll The NYAP was becoming a national organization, serving most cities with a daily newspaper. Its position was secured by exclusive contracts with the telegraph companies, a competitive strategy which forced major competitors out of the market and gained for it a nearly national monopoly. But as the NYAP increased in power, so did resentment of it. National power was a new phenomenon, and the NYAP exercised that power in as raw a fashion as did the other new, large companies of the day. First, the NYAP remained provincial in its own newsgathering. Rather than striving to be a truly national news collection organization, it emphasized New York City news. Second, the NYAP maximized profits at the expense of clients’ freedom, with restrictive rules and regulations. Clients were trapped, for even though much NYAP news seemed trivial outside New York City, the speed of its European news, financial news, and Washington political news was invaluable. To insure its own financial success, the NYAP forbade clients from dealing with any other news services, nor could a client newspaper share a NYAP dispatch with any non-client newspaper. More importantly, a client newspaper could not withhold any news, even local news, from a fellow NYAP client. Client newspapers were powerless to prevent a competing newspaper becoming a NYAP client. The NYAP benefited from each additional client, but a client’s competitive edge over a rival disappeared the moment that rival became a NYAP client. Not only were both papers instantly equalized by receiving identical NYAP news, but they were further levelled by the mandate to share all news. As timeliness became taken-for-granted, the price paid in loss of local control became more evident. Editors and publishers needed NYAP news to fulfil both journalistic and readership expectations, but they resented relinquishing control, and were frustrated by their lessened ability to compete. One response was to form co-operative regional associations within the NYAP to meet and discuss mutual interests and problems. The NYAP tolerated and even encouraged these regional associations, since localities could be served more easily than individual newspapers on the still limited telegraph lines. Meanwhile, local editors could sense collective power closer than the impersonal powers in New York.121 Some of these regional organizations predated the NYAP-notably the NYSAP and the city organizations in Richmond, Philadelphia and Boston. These early local organizations themselves became NYAP clients and members retained some collective authority, although still subject to NYAP rules. Other regional associations were formed after the NYAP had achieved a national monopoly-the New England Associated Press, the Kansas and Missouri Associated Press, the Western

[l] R. A. Schwarzlose, The American wire service: a study of their development as a social institution (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Illinois 1965) 39; 0. Gramling, AP: the story of news (New York 1940) 22-7; V. Rosewater, History of cooperative news-gathering in the United States (New York 1930) 67-77, 96; Shaw, op. cit. 2; P. R. Knights, op. cit. 9; W. J. Abbot, Chicago newspapers and their makers Review of Reviews 11 (June 1895) 646-65; A. Jones, Historical sketch of the electric telegraph, including its rise and progress in the United States (New York 1852) 112; A. F. Harlow, op. cit. 196 [2] Rosewater, op. cit. 87-91; Gramling, op. cit. 29; G. B. Prescott, History, theory andpractice of the electric telegraphy (Boston 1860) 386-7

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Associated Press, and the Southern Associated Press.rll Of these, only the Western Associated Press (WAP) challenged NYAP authority. The WAP versus the NYAP

Newspapers in the Midwest had been increasing in size and number as that area became more densely settled and urbanized. Many Midwestern daily newspapers were NYAP clients, but editors were dissatisfied with both NYAP service and NYAP rules. They desired less news of New York City, and more news of their own region and of national government in Washington, and more control over who could receive NYAP dispatches. In 1862, Joseph Medill, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, organized the opposition, suggesting in a letter to other publishers that they make the WAP a strong alliance. They were to meet, but with caution, “not to arouse the suspicions of New York or to provoke reprisals”. t21That year a quiet meeting was held in Indianapolis with representatives from nine cities (Fig. 2). After another meeting in 1863, the NYAP was persuaded to allow a WAP representative to compose nightly dispatches in New York City to send to the WAP. Their representative had the following instructions : Telegraph reports should above all else be reliable; they should be as brief as possible; information should be selected for its interest to the subscribing papers, not for its importance in New York, and in most cases editorial comment of New York papers should be disregarded; also news items should be compiled without giving credit to papers except where the authority is an essential part of the news.L31 These instructions restored some control of news sources to the regional group, and allayed some of the frustrations newspaper publishers had felt previously. As a recognized group within the NYAP, the WAP acquired the power to control its own membership, and to prevent non-member access to WAP news dispatches. But dissatisfaction persisted. At a meeting of the Philadelphia Press Club in 1866, the NYAP was called a monopoly, its news valueless and its cost enormous.[41 The most strident criticism was again from the WAP. A bill of particulars against the NYAP charged: (1) That the reports were made wholly in the interest of the proprietors of the news, to wit, the seven leading papers of the City of New York. (2) That, as the outside papers were taxed pro rata for the cost of all reports [including marine reports, excessive legislative reports, and market [l] J. C. Jordan, A study of the Confederate Press Association as an early cooperative newsgathering organization (unpubl. Master’s thesis, Murray State Univ. 1972) 1, 5; The Press Association of the Confederate States of America, The Press Association of the Confederate States of America (Griffin, Georgia 1863) 53 ; The Press Association of the Confederate States of America, Minutes of the Board of Directors of the Press Association (Atlanta 1864) 15; Northwestern Associated Press, Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting (1873); Northwestern Associated Press, Official and Private (Des Moines 1877); Northwestern Associated Press, Record of incorporation, by-laws and existing contracts (Springfield 1887); Southern Press Association, Proceedings, February 17, 18, 19, 20, 1869 (Macon, Georgia 1869); W. H. Rideing, The metropolitan newspaper Harpers Monthly 56 (December 1877) [2] gamling, [3] Ibid. 63

op. cit. 6&l

[4] The Telegrapher 2, 26 (16th April 1866)

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reports only wanted in New York] . . ., they paid largely in excess of what was just and what would be required to procure the news adapted to the wants and tastes of their own customers. (.3) That, by controlling the making of market reports, they made the commercial interests of the rest of the United States unjustly dependent on those of New York.rll These indictments exhibited the alienation of the Midwestern editors from the would-be national organization. The high-handedness of the NYAP was clearly a cause, as was editors’ resentment of losing their autonomy. Organizing into a regional grouping was a means of restoring at least partial control. The last item in the WAP’s “bill of particulars”, indicates that news content alone was not the only complaint: That this monopoly of management enabled the New York Associated Press to prevent the establishment of new papers in New York and to encourage the establishment of new papers elsewhere.[21 The language of this item reminds us that “monopoly” was not a value-free descriptor, but an indictment. Cincinnati editor, Murat Halstead declared the NYAP monopoly a form of despotism, and in 1866, he and fellow WAP leader Horace White announced a break with the NYAP.r31 The WAP would purchase news from whomever would sell to it. Simultaneously with this declaration, Daniel Craig, formerly of the NYAP, announced the creation of a separate wire service, the US and European News Association.[41 The ensuing struggle, dubbed the Press War of 1866-67, was also a clash of east versus west, of outsiders versus local control. The WAP appeared to be the stronger group, and on the verge of failure, the NYAP agreed to a settlement. The expense and disruption of the “war” as well as the telegraph company’s inability to serve adequately two competing wire services contributed to the settlement.t51 The agreement reached in 1867 represented another step toward acceptance of centralized control of news sources. The agreement provided for a territorial division of the United States with the WAP serving the area “west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio”,r61 the NYAP serving the northeast. The Southwestern Associated Press, the Northwestern Associated Press (in Illinois, lowa and Nebraska) and the Missouri and Kansas press became directly served clients of the WAP. Although the WAP was still bound to the NYAP, its ability to expand beyond the Midwest was greatly facilitated. A degree of local autonomy was retained by other regional organizations, operating as NYAP or WAP clients. Many instituted their own rules limiting membership in any given city, regulating local competition and making access to NYAP or WAP news a privilege to be closely protected. For example, membership in the Northwestern Associated Press, incorporated in 1867, was tightly controlled -it admitted only two additional newspapers in the following twenty-five years, and potential new members had to obtain approval by two-thirds of the entire membership as well as unanimous approval by other members in the same city. Agreements between the Northwestern Associated Press and the WAP also barred the WAP from serving directly any newspaper within the Northwestern’s territory but not a member of it. Other regional associations had similar provisions [l] Rosewater, op. cit. 118 [4] Knights, op. cit. 28

[2] Ibid. [5] Rosewater, op. cit. 128-9

[3] Gramling, [6] Ibid. 128

op. cit. 73

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with varying degrees of exclusiveness. Within the WAP itself, a new member had to pay a bonus, part of which went to previous members in the same city.[ll This arrangement of regional monopolies persisted uneasily for fifteen years, with occasional territorial encroachments. The protective clauses in regional association rules prevented many newspapers from gaining direct access to wire service reports, but the emergence of a rival news service was barred by the WAPNYAP’s exclusive contracts with Western Union, the best integrated telegraph network. After 1869, excluded and dissatisfied newspapers could have affiliated with the Hasson News Association (later the American Press Association and later still, the National Associated Press), which used a make-shift network of independent telegraph lines, but the Hasson/National was forced to curtail its business when Western Union assumed control of two key independent telegraph companies.t21 The Hasson/National represented a different philosophy of news service organization. It condemned the monopolistic practice of the NYAP, as had the WAP previously, but unlike the WAP, it did not see regional control as the remedy. Rather, open competition was proposed as the solution. In 1879, the National Associated Press president asserted the moral superiority of its methods: The National Associated Press does not seek to monopolize the trade in news. All newspapers are freely admitted to its privileges on the same terms and conditions as the existing members and in no case has there ever been charged a bonus for membership.t31 The National made no apology for the “national” in either its name or operations, nor did it let clients have a significant say in news dissemination. Its philosophy treated news as a product in an open, competitive market. Serving newspapers from the east coast-Providence, Boston and Philadelphia-to Louisville, Detroit and Pittsburgh,t41 the National Associated Press lived up to its name, and left regionalism aside. Nonetheless, it could not compete with the giant NYAP, which used its contracts with the nationwide Western Union to protect its regional structure. National competition As long as Western Union held a monopoly of the telegraph system, and the NYAP-WAP held exclusive Western Union contracts, no competitor could long survive. But in the 188Os,the Postal Telegraph Company broke the Western Union monopoly, making possible a competitive wire service. Continued frustrations with NYAP-WAP service and the fact that many of the country’s newly founded newspapers were evening papers, inadequately served by the NYAP-WAP, encouraged the formation of another wire service. In 1882, the United Press was formed, largely through a regrouping of former National Associated Press clients. Like the National Associated Press before it, the United Press (UP) transcended local or regional interests. Its clients were distributed nationwide (Fig. 3), without [l] Ibid. 133, 164 [2] Schwarzlose, American wire services, 50; The United Press, The UnitedPress AD 1882 (New York, Evening Post 1884) 3-4; New England Associated Press Manuscript Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University, Boxes 1-2 [3] Rosewater, op. cit. 155 [4] Ibid. 152-6

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geographically-based subgroups. The UP also shared the National’s opposition to the WAP-NYAP exclusive co-operative structure.[‘l At the same time, the WAP-NYAP was moving away from its use of regional monopolies. Since the agreement of 1867, the WAP had been gaining and increasing its financial strength (Fig. 4). Meeting in Detroit in 1882, the WAPmembers resolved to become completely independent from the NYAP, and to sell news to any newspaper outside WAP territory, respecting NYAP territory only as long as the NYAP respected WAP territory.

Figure 3. United Press clientele, 1882. Source: United Press, United Press, AD 1882 (New York, Evening Post 1884).

After negotiations in November 1882, the NYAP and the WAP agreed to joint management of a nationwide organization, with control divided territorially. Although the geographical divisions remained largely unchanged, the agreement gave the WAP more nearly equal status with the NYAP than it had previously enjoyed. The joint affiliation served clients dispersed throughout the United States (Fig. 5). The western group held a larger territory, but the eastern group still controlled the more powerful eastern papers and news sources.[21 NYAP-WAP co-operation remained superficially stable until the beginning of the next decade, competition occurring only between the UP and the joint AP. Both the UP and the joint AP were operating on a national basis, but the joint AP remained segmented, with suspected covert subversion of the co-operative agreement. In 1890, the WAP brought the furtive competition with the NYAP to a head. An investigation of the “increasing prosperity” of the NYAP, revealed collusion [l] United Press, op. cit. 3-4; Schwarzlose, American wire services, 52-3; Abbot, op. cit. 653; C. H. Dennis, Victor L.u~son: his times and his work (Chicago 1935) 187 [2] E. L. Gray, The career of William Henry Smith, politician-journalist (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State Univ. 1951) 68; Associated Press, A private circzdar William Henry Smith Papers, State Library and Historical Building, Indianapolis, Indiana

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Figure 4. Western Associated Press members attending annual meetingc, 1879-82. Source: Western Associated Press, Proceedings of Annual Meetings, 1879-82.

Figure 5. Papers affiliating under joint WAP-NYAP agreement of 1881, including New England Associated Press and New York State Associated Press. Source : Associated Press, Private circular (1882).

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between UP and NYAP-WAP officers. The joint AP was charged with providing news to the UP at no cost, making UP expenses ridiculously low. In response, the WAP dissolved its partnership with the NYAP. Late in 1891, the New York Sun resigned from the NYAP and joined the UP. Other NYAP newspapers followed. On 1lth December 1892, the WAP reorganized and incorporated under Illinois law with the title Associated Press (of Illinois), divesting itself of its regional label. The NYAP folded, as former clients turned either to the new Associated Press (AP) or the United Press (UP).tll The AP and the UP tried to avoid the rigors of competition by partitioning the continent. The AP, as the WAP before it, was to serve clients west of the Alleghenies, while the UP, like the NYAP before it, all clients east. The players had regrouped, but the game remained the same. But on 23rd August 1893, the territorial separation ended when an AP client, the Louisville Courier-Journal, shifted to the UP. AP directors proclaimed that the UP had violated the territorial division, and by 7th September, had “declared war”. AP leaders made successful trips east to solicit support, achieved an important victory in procuring an exclusive contract with Reuters News Agency. By 1897, the only New York paper still in the UP was the Sun and Journal, and the UP announced it would cease doing business, leaving the AP a virtual monopoly.t21 During the brief period of competition, both the AP and UP vied for clients irrespective of their location; instead, conflict centred on what constituted a fair method of business. Having emerged from an inferior client status with the NYAP, AP doctrine supported the rights of individual member newspapers and the cooperative principle. UP doctrine, on the contrary, declared the co-operative principle a device to monopolize news, and touted instead the market principle as the only fair way to distribute news. National monopoly

The demise of the UP left the AP with the closest thingto a national monopoly since the inception of news wire services. Competition was sustained by a few small agencies-the Laffan agency, run by the New York Sun, diehard of the UP, and three small agencies acquired for the use of Scripps’ newspaper chain. The APs exclusion rules remained, so that by its own choosing, the AP did not serve many newspapers which might have desired membership. This exclusiveness of membership, as well as its exclusive contracts with telegraph companies, made the AP a target for public questioning. In the era of the muckrakers, this nationally dominant organization was equated with corruption and collusion. The attacks on the AP focused on its rules, its power, and its potential biases through its mutual interests with other big business. Upton Sinclair, for example, in The Brass Check, called for a transfer of the AP’s power to public control. [l] Western Associated

Press, Resolutions adopted by the Western Associated Press in Convention at Detroit, 1882 (New York 1891); Dennis, op. cit. 187-91; Western Associated Press, Report of the Special Committee of Conference, Detroit 18, 1891 William Henry Smith

Papers, State Library and Historical Building, Indianapolis, Indiana, 4-5; K. Stewart and J. Tebbel, Makers of modern journalism (New York 1952) 148-9 [2] Dennis, op. cit. 203-9, 225; Stewart and Tebbel, op. cit. 150-l ; Schwarzlose, American wire service 65; M. E. Stone, The Associated Press : news gathering as a business Century Magazine (June 1905) 306-7; D. M. Owens, The Associated Press American Mercury (April 1927) 386; J. V. Hinkel, The contributions of Adobh S. Ochs to journalism (New York 1931)

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. . . the Associated Press, [is] the most powerful and most sinister monopoly in America. Certainly there will be no freedom in America, neither journalistic freedom nor political freedom nor industrial freedom, until the monopoly of the Associated Press is broken; until the distributing of the news to American newspapers is declared a public utility, under public control; until anyone who wishes to publish a newspaper in any American city or town may receive the Associated Press service without any formality whatever, save the filing of an application and the payment of a fee to cover the cost of the service.[ll

Sinclair need not have accused the AP of journalistic bias to note correctly that the variety of news sources had been dramatically diminished over the course of the century. No matter how fair or biased the AP, it remained the single source for disseminating news to the nation. Only the excluded newspapers and a few independents remained outside this homogenizing influence. In 1900, the exclusivity rule was questioned in court, when the Chicago InterOcean, expelled from the association for supplying and receiving news from a nonmember, brought suit. Although the Illinois court declared the exclusivity rule unlawful, the AP disbanded and re-incorporated under New York State law, rather than change.[*l Legally, the AP of New York (the present AP) was a different “person” from the AP of Illinois, but in operation, membership and leadership, the two were identical.

Re-emergence of competition The change of name and legal identity provided no answer to the charges of the progressive reformers, nor did complaints from reformers affect the operations of the AP. More important was the re-emergence of viable competition. Minor news agencies had continued to exist during the AP’s dominance, but each was small and fragmented from others. To serve successfully even a few newspapers, these smaller agencies worked out methods of co-operation. The three which had been serving Scripps newspaper chain had a close working alliance, each serving different portions of the country, but exchanging news among themselves. In 1904, the three were merged and organized into the United Press Association (UP), Since the AP held the major telegraph company under exclusive contract, as well as the major foreign news services, this new UP relied on smaller independent telegraph lines, and supplemented reports to some cities by telephone. The new UP was also forced to depend on its own foreign correspondents since foreign news services were contracted to the AP. They thus expanded into the first United States wire service with permanent international agents. The United Press Association was geared to afternoon newspapers, to newspapers excluded by the AP, and to newspapers which deemed AP prices too high and its policies unsatisfactory. Like the old UP before it, the new UP was a frankly profit-seeking venture, relying on the presumed fair operation of the marketplace to free it from the charges of “monopoly” which beset the AP. The UP denounced AP exclusiveness in its efforts to sell itself. It imposed no franchise fees, and excluded no one from membership. Since the smaller UP rarely would have [l] U. Sinclair, The brass check (1919) 406 [2] An effective anti-trust decision Outlook 65 (23rd June 1900) 429-30; Stone, Associated Press, op. cit. 307

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served major competitors in the same city, its lack of exclusiveness may have been irrelevant. Yet Scripps proudly pointed out that: We could not legally, even if we desired refuse a report to any newspaper that wanted it, even in cases where the new newspaper would come in direct competition with one of our own properties. In fact, there have been many cases where some of our newspapers have suffered seriously by that competition . . .[ll Other promoters and supporters of the UP contrasted it with AP methods. It was to be a profit-making non-exclusive organization, selling news to any client, anywhere, at any time. It must never be obligated to any financial business, or governmental, or political interest. It must never be dominated by any newspaper or group of newspapers. It must be colorful and enterprising but utterly impartial.t21 Another news service should be noted for its persistence. The outcome of several reorganizations, the International News Service emerged in 1909 as a byproduct of the Hearst newspapers chain. It was also a rival to the AP both in economic competition and in method of serving clients. Although change continued to occur in the newsgathering industry (including the 1958 merger of the UP and the INS into the present UPI), by the early twentieth century, news wire services in the United States had unquestionably become national institutions. Competition between wire services took place at the national scale and the struggle to retain local or even regional control was abandoned for an acceptance of fairness, impartiality, and efficiency and their companion, impersonality. Conclusions

An analysis of news wire service evolution shows the importance of individual and group decisions, anticipating and responding to both internal and external conditions.t31 Important forces operating within a given wire service include the setting of goals-timeliness, autonomy, economic dominance and defining “fair play”. External factors linked with these internal demands-the organizational structure of the telegraph system placed constraints on news wire service organization, even as it made timeliness more possible and consequently more imperative; competition among newspapers led progressively to co-operation among newspapers and the emergence of wire services and to competition among wire services. The movement from local to regional to national scale proceeded by small steps in reaction to dissatisfactions and perceived inequities and in anticipation of greater autonomy, timeliness and economic success. Individual changes did not all lead inexorably toward national organization. The critical formation of the WAP, for example, appears to be a retrenchment, a movement away from national organization. It was organized in reaction to the heavy hand of the NYAP policy-makers and the spatial bias of the NYAP news [l] J. A. Morris, Deadline eoery minute (New York 1957) 21 [2] S. V. Benet, The United Press Fortune Magazine 7 (5th May 1933) 70 [3] Schwarzlose, American wire services, terms the development of the wire services into a social institution a response to uncertainty and instability

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editors. The WAP created a regional organization where none had existed previously, and in the long run, became the mid-level in a national hierarchy. Such a pattern fits well with Conzen’s findings of changing linkages among correspondent banks. An initial primate city pattern takes on increasing complexity, resulting in a more completely integrated system of interdependence.[ll The evolution of this mid-level in the hierarchy is also reminiscent of an 1866 comment on the diffusion of the newspaper: A few years ago it seemed probable that the people of the United States would be supplied with news chiefly through newspapers published in the city of New York. . . since the introduction of the telegraph, the news outstrips the newspaper and is given to the public by the local press. It is this fact which forever limits the circulation and national importance of the New York press.L21 While this commentator failed to acknowledge the continued control of New York over news via the telegraph, he is describing a similar pattern-decreasing primacy of the major city, but an expanding sphere of influence. Carey’s interpretation of a “high communications policy”-one fostering timeliness and speed in communication predicts a similar pattern. “Improvements in communication centralize authority as they decentralize location.“[31 The history of the news wire service suggests that the attitudes and goals of decision-makers were more crucial than were such broad-based cultural imperatives. Resistance to and resentment of external authority created the regionallybased WAP. As resentment decreased, the WAP organization was integrated into one national hierarchical structure. Rivalries between Midwestern cities and the boosterism of the same time period suggests a similar conclusion.[41 Although the impact of news messages carried by the wire services has not been assessed here, we can note three ways in which wire service news may have facilitated the emergence of the national urban hierarchy. First is the effect of commercial and political news on the economic functioning of the urban hierarchy. As Langdale has shown, the telegraph was used very early as a means of rapidly acquiring commodity prices from New York.L61 Buffalo, an initial endpoint benefited from the rapid access to market prices. The wire services, through their organizational efficiency as well as telegraphic speed, distributed financial news with the dual effect of strengthening New York City’s position by tying all markets into it, yet promoting a less uncertain market environment in regional nodes. A second effect was to permit national cohesion through the dissemination of similar news items to all parts of the country. Newspaper readers in widely separated areas would have encountered increasingly similar news as the wire services [l] Michael P. Conzen, The maturing urban system in the United States, 1840-1910 Annals ofthe Association of American Geographers 67 (1977) 88-108 [2] James Parton, North American Review 1866 quoted in Frank L. Mott, American journalism: a history of newspapers in the United States through 250 years 1690 to 1940 (New York 1941) 305 [3] James W. Carey, Canadian communication theory: extensions and interpretations of Harold Innis, in Gertrude Joch Robinson and Donald F. Thea11 (Eds) Studies in Canadian Communications (Montreal 1975) 33 [4] Wyatt Winton Belcher, The economic rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850-80 (New York 1947) [5] John Langdale, Impact of the telegraph on the Buffalo agricultural commodity market, 1846-48 Professional Geographer 31 (1979) 165-9

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evolved into a national organization. Lastly, because the wire services and their affiliated newspapers were themselves caught in the difficult local to national transition, and because news is a public forum, the cases for and against New York domination or localism or exclusiveness were argued in print. The New York World, for example, not only printed its own position, but devoted space to reprint other newspapers’ denunciations of the NYAP during the 1866 “Press War”.[ll Public attention was thus drawn to the process of change itself, and newspaper rhetoric helped categorize and channel the arguments. The question remains to what extent the case of the wire services is representative of nineteenth-century changes in other organizations. The fragmented and sometimes faltering course of the wire services stands in contrast to the deliberate competitive strategy of a single, powerful organization as Langdale has documented in the Bell telephone system.[21Perhaps because so many news wire service decisionmakers were primarily newspaper editors or publishers and only secondarily wire service leaders, their plans were short-term or in conflict with their primary interests, the newspapers. Still, many devices to maintain the economic security of the wire services were exploited-exclusive contracts with telegraph companies, foreign news services and newspapers, active solicitation of clients, and, in the case of the new UP, use of innovative technology, the telephone. The relatively slow pace of organization shift from local to national belies any theory of direct technological determinism, instead supporting the view that innovative technology was used in a competitive strategy. The slow rate of change in the wire services also indicates the importance of attitudes and goals of decisionmakers as sources of change. Timeliness became a much more urgent part of the expectations of newsgatherers and readers during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and decisions by newspaper leaders to co-operate or compete were based on the better chance of achieving timeliness. Local autonomy was sacrificed to achieve timely and efficient news, at first a willingly made small sacrifice; later a grudgingly given one, while attempts to regain local control only set the stage for a well-integrated national hierarchy. Department of Geography, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

[l] New York World (26th December 1866) [2] John V. Langdale, The growth of long-distance Journal

of Historical Geography 4 (1978) 145-9

telephony

in the Bell system: 18751907