News Wire Services

Most radio stations run some news programming. Maybe it's a quick 5 minute headlines, traffic and weather, or maybe it's core programming but most stations have at least a little something. Doing your own news is expensive. The more news you do the more expensive it is. More important than that the broader the scope the more expensive it is. State news is more expensive to do than local news, and National news is more expensive to do than State news, and international news is more expensive to do than National news. That's the basic reason that wire services exist. It's most cost effective to write a news story once and sell it 300 times than for 300 radio stations to research and write 300 stories. It's simple math. They became so powerful so quickly that Congress held hearings about their connections and loyalties as early as 1879.

But it has pitfalls. There is a political homogeneity to the mass airing of news. In 1955 The Kruglak did a study on AP reporters and found a few things. In that year there were 169 people working in Europe for the three major news services: AP, INS, and UP. Those people constituted 60% of the U.S. press in that region. You can derive your own political revelations about newswriting bias. Kruglak was more concerned that they were inexperienced and poorly paid. (I'm quoting from the book The American Wire Service by Richard  Schwarzlose.) His stats were as follows:

• 52% of them were from the American Midwest
• 33% from the East Coast
• 50% were under the age of 36
• 50% were married
• 13% had non-journalistic backgrounds
• 26% had less than 5 years experience
• 60% were on their first foreign assignment

But by 1963 another researcher, John Wilhelm estimated the total number was 1,233 news people. In all fairness these numbers were fudged a bit according to his contemporaries. Other estimates put it as low as 450. But clearly, news was growing as an industry. Between 1849 and 1927 the staff of the AP nearly quadrupled. They had almost doubled before WWI and the wartime coverage clearly increased demand. But staffing was regional; at the end of WWII in 1946, the AP cut staff from 150 European respondents down to 42. UP made similar cuts.they all have been suffering from a more serious decline with the fall of newspapers. Many no longer exist. For example, As of 1999 UPI (United Press International) ended its traditional wire service.

The AP (Associated Press) is the most familiar wire service to most laypeople. It began in 1846. But it's not the oldest, that title goes the AFP (Agence France-Presse) which was founded in 1835. Two early AFP employees went off and founded their own competing services Reuters News Agency in 1851 in London, and Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in 1849 in Berlin. You'll notice all of these predate radio by almost a century.  These early services were marketed to news papers and the text was delivered by Morse code over telegraph, hence the "wire" in wire service. Below is a short list of available news wires. Some are free, most are not. There is a much more complete list here.

NEWS WIRE SERVICES:

• Collegiate Press Wire: Free radio-friendly weekly feeds via e-mail

• Free Speech Radio News: Daily progressive news Monday - Friday via satellite and download.

• Learfield Communications: Daily feeds of world and national news, weather and sports via satellite feed or e-mail.

• Metro Networks: A daily feed of world, national, state and local news, weather, with en emphassi on traffic. Delivery by satellite or download. Formerly owned by Westwood One now owned by Clear Channel.

• Federal News Service: News of federal law-makers, events, and strong emphasis on transcriptions. 

• USA News Network: A daily fax of national/world news, along with news of interest to college students, entertainment news, alternative music news, and national sports.

•  The Weather Center:  real-time localized weather forecasts via fax or e-mail. Audio segments also available. Note: their website it terrible, but the programming is fine.

• Feature Story News  They offer hourly newscasts of five minutes, three minutes and 30 seconds on weekdays and a weekend "week in review" newscast (5:00 and 3:00).  Delivery is via mp3 download and cost is $15/month (pay via PayPal!).

•  Total Traffic Network: Another traffic -centric Clear Channel property. Don't be surprised if they end up merged this year. Live local traffic feeds, GPS maps etc.

• Reuters America Wire : The world's biggest international multimedia news agency. Soft on local news, but great on international, national and decent coverage of big state events.

Career Academy School of Famous Broadcasters

I found these two LPs at a flea market. They both had identical sleeves, only the labels differ. Pictured on the jackets are Howard Miller, John Cameron Swayze, Robert St. John, Ulmer Turner, Fran Allison, Westbrook Van Voorhis, and Earl Gillespie.

I had no idea who any of these people were, but according to the jacket they were all famous. I have two of the LPs and The Transmitter, the newsletter of Library of American Broadcasting here tells me there are a total of 36 LPs in the series.

"St. John’s work as the Dean of the Directing Faculty of the Career Academy Division of Famous Broadcasters is represented by thirty-six LP records containing home study lessons and a copy of his textbook Encyclopedia of Radio and Television Broadcasting (The Man Behind the Microphone)."

Side A disc one was the program introduction. which told me that Robert St. John was the dean. He was born in 1902,and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 16 he lied about his age and enlisted in

World War I. Upon returning home he enrolled at Trinity College where eventually he was expelled over an article he wrote for the Hartford Courant. He later became a writer for the Chicago Daily News and co-founded the Cicero Tribune. Al Capone bought out his partner and mobsters beat and hospitalized him over an anti-gangster article.

He survived the ordeal and he started working for the AP as a war correspondent in the Balkans. But AP writers were not allowed to publish books, so he secured a job at NBC Radio. We heard his voice on NBC on D-day, he stayed in the studio for 117 hours. He was fired from NBC for merely being mentioned in "Red Channels" an anti-communist mag. He had been using them as a source for one of his books. It didn't' stop him, he wrote another twenty books and used whatever sources he damn well pleased. He died in 2003 at the age of 101. It seems impossible he'd have had the time to be the dean of anything. But then I found a single collaborating reference.

Gary Knapp wrote the book "Building the American Dream".

"The mock broadcast studio at the school even had it's own call letters and was referred to as WCAB radio, named after Career Academy of Broadcasting, and used to identify our school station. the academy had both morning and afternoon classes; I was in the morning session. ...We were informed our school had a prestigious board of directors made of such dignitaries as Robert St. John, a world famous news correspondent for NBC news, an advertising expert John Cameron, Swayze from the famous TV watch commercial, (it takes a licking and keeps on ticking), and children's host Fran Allison from Kulka Fran and Ollie, to name a few. our Class got to meet Robert St. John one day as he stopped by the class on new journalism and he signed our broadcast textbooks. "

That's an affirmative. Knapp goes on to describe other visits by St. John and other staffers, field trips to the FCC and his later employment at KGPC. Other students that I've found include authors Robert Lewanski and Robert Zuraw. Jimmy Jet from KYA-AM, Rick Thomas of Kissin' Country and Elijah Mondy of KJIW-FM all were also graduates.

For a broadcasting school that apparently had branches in half a dozen cities that seems like a small crop. There's a lot more to this mystery. If any reader knows more, feel free to enlighten me.

***UPDATE***

This short post is one of the most popular ones I've ever posted. In the years since a few Facebook groups have popped up and the comments section here has become a genuine class reunion. I do recommend you read the comments, you might find people you know.