A news agency is an organization journalists established to supply news reports to organizations in the news trade: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. They are also known as wire services or news services.
News agencies can be either corporations that sell news (e.g. Reuters), cooperatives composed of newspapers that share their articles with each other (e.g. AP), commercial newswire services which charge organisations to distribute their news (e.g. PR Newswire). Governments may also control "news agencies," particularly in authoritarian states, like China, Russia and to a lesser degree the United States. A recent rise in internet-based alternative news agencies, as a component of the larger independent media have emphasized a "non-corporate view," as being largely independent of the pressures of business media.
News agencies generally prepare articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used telegraphy; today they frequently use the Internet). Corporations, individuals, analysts and intelligence agencies may also subscribe.
Prominent international news agencies include:
News agencies are distinct from news syndicates that distribute comic strips and other editorial material, such as columns and features, and also from PR services that distribute press releases. Sometimes news agencies have separate arms for such work, but many such organizations are completely separate.
Commercial newswire services include: