This is a newsletter!

No matter what we do, the words "This is a newsletter" get our attention. Everyone's routine suddenly ends with these urgent words. Drivers install their car radios. Housewives stop working. The conversations end abruptly. The moderator's next word can be anything: a disaster in your community, the murder of a world leader.

These scenes are repeated almost every day somewhere in the world. What we do not see, however, is what happens behind the scenes in the moments before "This is a Bulletin" interrupts the normal broadcasting routine. We can find out by going to the nerve center of a national news agency, the press room.

One of our first impressions is the calm. Newsrooms have an almost traditional reputation for being a noisy but organized "mess": dozens of telecom writers broadcast news and sports reports aloud from around the world, noise from multiple typewriters while journalists and editors work on articles and copiers create finished stories for and bring to editors . In fact, the description has been accurate for decades.

But in the computer age, the news agency has also kept pace with the advances of science. The noisy printers are gone. Instead, there are modern machines with special electronic heads that quietly slide back and forth on telex paper. Some high-speed machines produce materials at speeds of 1200 words per minute - as many as six lines in just three seconds!

Typewriters are also gone. Instead, journalists sit in front of computer terminals that look like TVs with keyboards. When an author presses the keys, letters appear on the screen and the story takes shape. With these devices, the reporter can make changes on the spot. You can reformulate instructions, delete sentences or whole paragraphs and insert them back into another part of the story, or simply delete them completely.

The only sound now is conversation, the occasional ringing of the phone and of course the bells. The bells signal to the editor that an urgent story is coming. They are not often heard and the visitor may not even notice the fast series of silent bells. However, the alarming machine immediately caught the attention of at least one of the journalists on duty.

How it all started

In Paris in 1835, a man named Charles Havas decided to start a new business. He subscribed to several foreign newspapers and had financial information translated and printed on arrival. He sold it to businessmen in the city. The newspapers were also interested. Later, Havas expanded its business by translating and selling reports and financial information.

Soon he received messages from all over France: by mail, carrier pigeon and then by telegraph. Thus was born the French news agency Agence France-Presse. In New York City, six publishers opened a news agency that later became known as the Associated Press (AP). Soon others appeared around the world: Reuters in London, Canadian press in Toronto.

Hundreds of newspapers found that their readers wanted to know about world events, not just their communities. There is no doubt that only newspapers would have provided such extensive coverage. But by gathering resources to run a news agency, this type of reporting became possible.

But how do these agencies get all the news?

Operating agencies

There are two types of news agencies: national and international. A national authority disseminates information in a specific country. Several offices are set up, usually one in each state or province. The agency can sell its service to hundreds, if not thousands, of newspapers, radio and television stations across the country. The cost usually depends on the size of a specific station or card.

Each newspaper and radio or television station has its own press team that handles local news in this area. However, if news arises that may be of interest to people outside your community, send them to the office of the National News Agency in that region.The agency in turn transmits information of regional interest to all customers in the area it serves.

Meanwhile, the agency headquarters oversees all regional news from their agencies around the world. When items of great interest appear, they are collected and shipped nationwide. In addition, the national news agency has its own team of journalists and editors who collect information and cover big stories.

National news agencies register with one or more international news agencies to obtain information on world events. They cover several countries and sell their services to national agencies and sometimes to major newspapers and radio and television stations. The international authorities in turn control each national service. When an international story arises, the international service takes over and the incident becomes an international story.

Agencies that monitor each other have their computers plugged in. In other words, when a story is linked to an agency, it is automatically entered into the computer of each agency that has purchased that service. Think about what happens when a great story is told:

Suppose this happens in San Francisco. The Associated Press can be the first to publish the story, and a reporter can create a four- or five-line newsletter on their computer terminal in seconds. Your editor will check your accuracy and move it immediately. Seconds later, the article was selected by editors in the New York office and mailed nationwide to appear on newspaper, radio and television tickers in the United States.

Meanwhile, an editor-in-chief of the Canadian press in Toronto, alerted by the news broadcasts, calls up the news on his computer, analyzes it and sends it through Canada. Now, AP has changed the story in its international segment as well, and affiliated national intelligence services are spreading the story in their countries. Four or five minutes after the San Francisco reporter finished his newsletter, the story, which has not been rewritten or rewritten by anyone, could be on the teletype of a radio station in Terranova or in a newspaper in Rome. .

As all of this is happening, several news outlets (Reuters, United Press International and others) are picking up the story as well.

TV and satellite

The TV news has similar news sources. Local broadcasters get much of their programming from a television station that broadcasts news and entertainment. Although they usually check national news online at least once a day, local broadcasters usually subscribe to one or more news agencies and run their own news programs.

The networks and some of the major TV channels are equipped with mobile studios that can take the stage for an innovative story and broadcast the development live. The story can be broadcast on one station or on a whole network of stations. In 1970, for example, millions of Canadians saw the kidnappers of British diplomat James Cross drive their bomb-laden car through the streets of Montreal after negotiating a deal that would allow them to fly overseas.

Networking networks in other countries can also capture interesting stories and broadcast them live or broadcast them later. This is usually done using a complex system of space satellites and microwave repeater stations.

For example, when a Canadian TV station wanted a movie about a major plane crash in Australia, the local TV station would broadcast it to the nearest ground station via a series of microwave systems on a system. satellite. From there it would be sent to an Intelsat satellite somewhere in the Pacific. That satellite would send it to a ground station in British Columbia. From there, it would be sent to a Telesat ground station (Canada's satellite communications system) and another satellite in Western Canada. The signal would then be sent to a ground station in Rivière-Rouge, Quebec, and microwave in Montreal or Toronto.

It all happens in a fraction of a second. Of course, it's very expensive - it costs several thousand dollars in a matter of minutes. Since satellite time is sold for at least ten minutes, networks typically transport the material "in tow". Two or three together can rent a certain time to broadcast the films they want to use later.

The news worries you

Do we have all the news with all this technology? No. The news gets much more information than it can use. Many people use only about 5 to 7% of all hardware. In turn, regular subscribers use only part of the information they receive. No matter where we live or what we read, there is probably a lot more in the world than we think.

What small-town people learn from world events may depend on decisions made by half a dozen men and women thousands of miles away. But even in large cities, where the media have access to several agencies, the number of people deciding what to use is relatively small. And since every journalist uses today's most important stories, much of the news on the news services will be the same and shape their worldview based on these specific stories.