Interbank market

The interbank market is the top-level foreign exchange market where banks exchange different currencies.^[1] The banks can either deal with one another directly, or through electronic brokering platforms. The Electronic Broking Services (EBS) and Thomson Reuters Dealing 3000 Xtra are the two competitors in the electronic brokering platform business and together connect over 1000 banks.^[1]The currencies of most developed countries have floating exchange rates. These currencies do not have fixed values but, rather, values that fluctuate relative to other currencies.

The interbank market is an important segment of the foreign exchange market. It is a wholesale market through which most currency transactions are channeled. It is mainly used for trading among bankers. The three main constituents of the interbank market are

• the spot market
• the forward market
• SWIFT (Society for World-Wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications)

The interbank market is unregulated and decentralized. There is no specific location or exchange where these currency transactions take place. However, foreign currency options are regulated in the United States and trade on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Further, in the U.S., the Federal Reserve Bank publishes closing spot prices on a daily basis.

[edit] Market makers

Unlike the Stock Market, the Foreign Currency Exchange Market (Forex) does not have a physical central exchange like the NYSE does at 11 Wall Street.^[2] Without a central exchange, currency exchange rates are made, or set, by market makers.^[1] Banks constantly quote a bid and ask price based on anticipated currency movements taking place and thereby make the market. Major Banks like UBS, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup handle very large currency trading (forex) transactions often in billions of dollars.^[1] These transactions cause the primary movement of currency prices.

Other factors contribute to currency exchange rates and these include forex transactions made by smaller banks, hedge funds, companies, forex brokers and traders. Companies are involved in forex transaction due to their need to pay for products and services supplied from other countries which use a different currency. Forex traders on the other hand use forex transaction, of a much smaller volume with comparison to banks, to benefit from anticipated currency movements by buying cheap and selling at a higher price or vice versa. This is done through forex brokers who act as a mediator between a pool of traders and also between themselves and banks.

Central banks also play a role in setting currency exchange rates by altering interest rates. By increasing interest rates they stimulate traders to buy their currency as it provides a high return on investment and this drives the value of the corresponding central bank’s currency higher with comparison to other currencies.

 

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

By Sujendro

Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (dpa) (German Press Agency) is a news agency founded in 1949 in Germany. Based in Hamburg, it has grown to be a major worldwide operation serving print media, radio, television, online, mobile phones, and national news agencies. News is available in German, English, Spanish, and Arabic.

The DPA is the biggest press agency in Germany.^[1]

 

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Wikipedia

Associated Press

The Associated Press

By Sujendro

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative.

As of 2005, the news collected by the AP is published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television and radio broadcasters. The photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The Associated Press operates 243 news bureaus, and it serves at least 120 countries, with an international staff located all over the world.

Associated Press also operates The Associated Press Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. The AP Radio also offers news and public affairs features, feeds of news sound bites, and long form coverage of major events.

As part of their cooperative agreement with The Associated Press, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. For example, on page two of every edition of The Washington Post, the newspaper’s masthead includes the statement, “The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to use for re-publication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and all local news of spontaneous origin published herein.”

The AP employs the “inverted pyramid formula” for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the story’s essential meaning and news information.

Cutbacks at longtime U.S. rival United Press International, most significantly in 1993, left the AP as the primary nationally oriented news service based in the United States, although United Press International still produces and distributes news stories daily. Other English-language news services, such as Reuters and the English-language service of Agence France-Presse, are based outside the United States. More recently launched internet news services, such as All Headline News (AHN) are becoming competitive to the traditional wire services like the AP.

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Key dates 3 AP sports polls 4 AP sports awards 4.1 Baseball 4.2 Basketball 4.3 American football 5 Associated Press Television News 6 Litigation and controversies 6.1 Breach of contract and unfair competition 6.2 Christopher Newton 6.3 Fair-use controversies 6.4 Copyright and intellectual property 6.4.1 Shepard Fairey 6.4.2 Hot News 7 Governance 8 Web resource 9 References 10 External links

[edit] History

AP headquarters at 450 West 33rd Street, New York City

Logo on the former AP Building in New York City

Associated Press is a not-for-profit news cooperative formed in the spring of 1846 by five daily newspapers in New York City in order to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican War by boat, horse express, and telegraph. The venture was organized by Moses Yale Beach (1800–68), second publisher of the New York Sun, and agreed to by the Herald, Courier and Enquirer, Journal of Commerce, and the Express. Some historians believe that the Tribune joined at this time; documents show it was a member in 1849. The New York Times became a member in 1851. Initially known as the New York Associated Press (NYAP), the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press (1862), which criticized it for monopolistic practices in gathering news and setting prices. An investigation completed in 1892 by Victor Lawson, editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News, revealed that several principals of the NYAP had entered into a secret agreement with United Press, a rival organization, to share NYAP news and the profits of reselling it. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, the Western Associated Press was incorporated in Illinois as the Associated Press. An Illinois Supreme Court decision (Inter Ocean Publishing Co. v. Associated Press) in 1900—that the AP was a public utility and operating in restraint of trade—resulted in AP’s move from Chicago to New York City, where corporation laws were more favorable to cooperatives.^{[citation needed]}

Melville Stone, who had founded the Chicago Daily News in 1875, served as AP General Manager from 1893 to 1921. He embraced the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity for which AP is still known. The cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper (served 1925-48), who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe, and (after World War II), the Middle East. He introduced the “telegraph typewriter” or teletype into newsrooms in 1914. In 1935, AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over telephone lines on the day they were taken. In 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. United States that AP had been violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting member newspapers from selling or providing news to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP. In 1982, satellites began transmitting news photography. AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations; it created its own radio network in 1974. In 1994, it established APTV, a global video newsgathering agency. APTV merged with WorldWide Television News in 1998 to form APTN, which provides video to international broadcasters and websites. In 2009, AP had more than 240 bureaus globally. Its mission —“to gather with economy and efficiency an accurate and impartial report of the news”—has not changed since its founding, but digital technology has made the distribution of the AP news report an interactive endeavor between AP and its 1,400 U.S. newspaper members as well as broadcasters, international subscribers, and online customers. AP headquarters are at 450 W. 33rd Street in Manhattan.

The Associated Press began diversifying its news gathering capabilities, and by 2007 AP was generating only about 30% of its revenue from United States newspapers. 37% came from the global broadcast customers, 15% from online ventures, and 18% came from international newspapers and from photography.^[3]

[edit] Key dates

• 1849: the Harbor News Association opened the first news bureau outside the United States, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to meet ships sailing from Europe before they reached dock in New York.
• 1876: Mark Kellogg, a stringer, is the first AP news correspondent to be killed while reporting the news, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. His final dispatch: “I go with (Commander George Armstrong) Custer and will be at the death.”
• 1893: Melville E. Stone becomes the general manager of the reorganized AP, a post he holds until 1921. Under his leadership, the AP grows to be one of the world’s most prominent news agencies.
• 1899: AP uses Guglielmo Marconi‘s wireless telegraph to cover the America’s Cup yacht race off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the first news test of the new technology.
• 1914: AP introduces the Teletype, which transmitted directly to printers over telegraph wires. Eventually a worldwide network of 60-word-per-minute Teletype machines is built.
• 1935: AP initiates WirePhoto, the world’s first wire service for photographs. The first photograph to transfer over the network depicted an airplane crash in Morehouseville, New York, on New Year’s Day, 1935.
• 1938: AP expands to new offices at 50 Rockefeller Plaza (known as “50 Rock”) in the newly built Rockefeller Center in New York City, which would remain its headquarters for 66 years.^[4]
• 1941: AP expands from print to radio broadcast news.
• 1945: AP Paris bureau chief Edward Kennedy defies an Allied headquarters news blackout to report Nazi Germany’s surrender, touching off a bitter episode that leads to his eventual dismissal by the AP. Kennedy maintains that he reported only what German radio already had broadcast.
• 1994: AP launches APTV, a global video news gathering agency, headquartered in London.
• 2004: The AP moves its headquarters from 50 Rock to 450 W. 33rd Street, New York City.^[4]
• 2006: AP joined YouTube.
• 2008: The AP launches AP Mobile (initially known as the AP Mobile News Network), a multimedia news portal that gives users news they can choose and provides anytime access to international, national and local news. AP was the first to debut a dedicated iPhone news application in June 2008, offering AP’s own worldwide coverage of breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics and business as well as content from more than 1,000 AP members and third-party sources.^[5]
• 2010: AP earnings fall 65% from 2008 to just $8.8 million. The AP also announced that it would have posted a loss of $4.4 million had it not liquidated its German language news service for $13.2 million.^[6]
• 2011: AP lost $14.7 million in 2010 as revenue plummeted for a second consecutive year. 2010 revenue totaled $631 million, a decline of 7% from the previous year. This is despite sweeping price cuts designed to bolster revenues and help newspapers and broadcasters cope with declining revenue.

[edit] AP sports polls

Main article: AP Poll

The AP is known for its Associated Press polls on numerous college sports in the United States. The AP polls ranking the top 25 NCAA Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision) college football and NCAA Division I men’s and women’s college basketball teams are the most well known. The AP composes the polls by collecting and compiling the top-25 votes of numerous designated sports journalists. The AP poll of college football was particularly notable for many years because it helped determine the ranking of teams at the end of the regular season for the collegiate Bowl Championship Series until the AP, citing conflict of interest, asked for the poll to be removed from the bowl series. Beginning in the 2005 season, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll took the AP’s place in the bowl series formula. The AP poll is the longest serving national poll in college football, having begun in 1936.

[edit] AP sports awards

[edit] Baseball

In 1959, the AP began its AP Manager of the Year Award, for Major League Baseball. The award was discontinued in 2001.^[7]

[edit] Basketball

Every year on March 31, the AP releases the names of the winners of its AP College Basketball Player of the Year and AP College Basketball Coach of the Year awards.

[edit] American football

• AP NFL Coach of the Year (1957)

[edit] Associated Press Television News

The APTN Building in London

In 1994, London-based Associated Press Television (APTV) was founded to provide agency news material to television broadcasters. Other existing providers of such material at the time were Reuters Television and Worldwide Television News (WTN).

In 1998, AP purchased WTN, and APTV left the Associated Press building in the Central London and merged with WTN to create Associated Press Television News (APTN) in the WTN building, now the APTN building in Camden Town.

[edit] Litigation and controversies

[edit] Breach of contract and unfair competition

In November 2010 the Associated Press was sued by iCopyright. iCopyright’s lawsuit asserts breach of contract and unfair competition in that the Associated Press launched a copyright-tracking registry, built upon information and business intelligence that the AP misappropriated from iCopyright.^[8]

[edit] Christopher Newton

The Associated Press fired Washington, D.C. bureau reporter Christopher Newton in September 2002, accusing him of fabricating at least 40 people and organizations since 2000. Some of the nonexistent agencies quoted in his stories included “Education Alliance,” the “Institute for Crime and Punishment in Chicago,” “Voice for the Disabled” and “People for Civil Rights.”^[9]

[edit] Fair-use controversies

In June 2008, the AP sent numerous DMCA take down demands and threatened legal action against several blogs. The AP contended that the internet blogs were violating AP’s copyright by linking to AP material and using headlines and short summaries in those links. Many bloggers and experts noted that the use of the AP news fell squarely under commonly accepted internet practices and within fair use standards.^[10] Others noted and demonstrated that AP routinely takes similar excerpts from other sources, often without attribution or licenses. AP responded that it was defining standards regarding citations of AP news.^[11]

[edit] Copyright and intellectual property

In August 2005, Ken Knight, a Louisiana photographer sued^[12] the Associated Press claiming that the AP had willfully and negligently violated Knight’s copyright by distributing a photograph of celebrity Britney Spears to various media outlets including, but not limited to: truTV (formerly CourtTV), America Online and Fox News. According to court documents the AP did not have a license to publish, display or relicense the photographs. The case was settled by the parties in November 2006.

In a case filed February, 2005, McClatchey v. The Associated Press, a Pennsylvania photographer sued the Associated Press claiming that the AP had cropped a picture to remove the plaintiff’s embedded title and copyright notice and later distributed it to news organizations without the plaintiff’s permission or credit. According to court documents the parties settled the lawsuit.^[13]

In April 2011, a New Mexico courtroom sketch artist sued the Associated Press claiming that the AP had violated her copyrights by reselling her images without a license and had deceptively, fraudulently and wrongfully passed off the artist’s work as their own.^[14] According to court documents the AP did not have a license to resell or relicense the images.

[edit] Shepard Fairey

In March 2009, the Associated Press counter-sued artist Shepard Fairey over his famous image of Barack Obama, saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of an AP photo violated copyright laws and signaled a threat to journalism. Fairey had sued the Associated Press the previous month over his artwork, titled “Obama Hope” and “Obama Progress,” arguing that he did not violate copyright law because he dramatically changed the image. The artwork, based on an April 2006 picture taken for the AP by Mannie Garcia, was a popular image during the presidential campaign and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. According to the AP lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Fairey knowingly “misappropriated The AP’s rights in that image.” The suit, which also names Fairey’s companies, asks the court to award AP profits made off the image and damages. “While (Fairey and the companies) have attempted to cloak their actions in the guise of politics and art, there is no doubt that they are profiting handsomely from their misappropriation,” the lawsuit says. Fairey said he looked forward to “upholding the free expression rights at stake here” and disproving the AP’s accusations.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Hot News

In January 2008, the Associated Press sued competitor All Headline News (AHN) claiming that AHN allegedly infringed on its copyrights and a contentious ‘quasi-property’ right to facts.^[15][16] The AP complaint asserted that AHN reporters had copied facts from AP news reports without permission and without paying a syndication fee. After AHN moved to dismiss all but the copyright claims set forth by AP, a majority of the lawsuit was dismissed.^[17] According to court documents, the case has been dismissed and both parties have settled the lawsuit.^[18]

In June 2010 the Associated Press was accused^[19] of having unfair and hypocritical policies after it was demonstrated that AP reporters had copied Hot News, original reporting and facts from the “Search Engine Land” website without permission, attribution or credit.^[20]

[edit] Governance

The Associated Press is governed by an elected board of directors.^[21]

[edit] Web resource

The AP’s multi-topic structure has lent itself well to web portals, such as Yahoo! and MSN, all of which have news sites that constantly need to be updated. Often, such portals will rely on AP and other news services as their first source for news coverage of breaking news items. Yahoo’s “Top News” page gives the AP top visibility out of any news outlet. This has been of major impact to the AP’s public image and role, as it gives new credence to the AP’s continual mission of having staff for covering every area of news fully and promptly. The AP is also the news service used on the Nintendo Wii‘s News Channel.^[22] In 2007 Google announced it was paying for Associated Press content displayed in Google News, but the articles are not permanently archived.^[23] On December 24, 2009, Google stopped displaying or hosting Associated Press news content on the Google News website.^[24]
Official website The Associated Press

From Wikipedia

Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world,^[1] and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters.^{[citation needed]} It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet.

AFP is based in Paris, with regional centres in Hong Kong, Nicosia, Cyprus, Montevideo, São Paulo, and Washington, D.C., and bureaux in 110 countries. It transmits news in French, English, Arabic, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.

History

The agency was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. Two of his employees, Paul Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, later set up rival news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. In order to reduce overheads and develop the lucrative advertising side of the business, Havas’s sons, who had succeeded him in 1852, signed agreements with Reuter and Wolff, giving each news agency an exclusive reporting zone in different parts of Europe. This arrangement lasted until the 1930s, when the invention of short-wave wireless improved and cut communications costs. To help Havas extend the scope of its reporting at a time of great international tension, the French government financed up to 47% of its investments.

In 1940, when German forces occupied France during the Second World War, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed the French Information Office (FIO); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas. On August 20, 1944, as Allied forces moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse.

Established as a state enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, on March 6, 1953. AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on January 10, 1957 the French Parliament passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the agency’s revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined.

In 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its five autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong, then a British Crown colony. Each region has its own budget, administrative director and chief editor. In September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide. The mission of the AFP “… is’ ‘defined by its statutes: to report events, free of « all influences or considerations likely to impair the exactitude » of its news and « under no circumstances to pass under the legal or actual control of an ideological, political or economic group.”^[2]

In 1991, AFP set up a joint venture with Extel to create a financial news service, AFX News.^[3] It was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial.^[4]

The Mitrokhin archive identified six agents and two confidential KGB contacts inside Agence France-Presse who were used in Soviet operations in France.^[5]

In October 2008, the Government of France announced moves to change AFP’s status, notably by bringing in outside investors. On November 27 of that year, the main trade unions represented in the company’s home base of France – the CGT, Force Ouvrière, SNJ,^[6] Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT^[7] and SUD, launched an online petition to oppose what they saw as an attempt to privatise the agency.

On December 10, 2009, the French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand announced that he was setting up a Committee of Experts under former AFP CEO Henri Pigeat to study plans for the agency’s future status.^[8] On February 24, 2010, Pierre Louette unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as CEO by the end of March, and move to a job with France Télécom.

Status

AFP headquarters in Paris

AFP is a government-chartered public corporation operating under a 1957 law, but is officially a commercial business independent of the French government. AFP is administered by a CEO and a board comprising 15 members:

• Eight representatives of the French press;
• Two representatives of the AFP personnel;
• Two representatives of the government-owned radio and television;
• Three representatives of the government. One is named by the prime minister, another by the minister of finance, and a third by the minister of foreign affairs.

The board elects the CEO for a renewable term of three years. The AFP also has a council charged with ensuring that the agency operates according to its statutes, which mandate absolute independence and neutrality. Editorially, AFP is governed by a network of senior journalists.

The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services. In practice, those subscriptions are an indirect subsidy to AFP. The statutes of the agency prohibit direct government subsidies.

Investments

Notable investments include:

• AFP GmbH:

AFP GmbH is the subsidiary of AFP in Germany, producing German-language services for local press, internet and corporate clients.

• SID:

Sport-Informations-Dienst (SID) is producing a German-language sports service.

• Citizenside:

In November 2007, AFP announced its investment in Scooplive, a news photo and video agency online, created in France in 2006. Scooplive became Citizenside after this investment.

Official website Agence frence Presse (AFP)

From Wikipedia

Reuters

By Sujendro

Reuters Group Limited (informally Reuters, pronounced /ˈrɔɪtərz/) is a global news agency^[1] headquartered in London, United Kingdom owned by Thomson Reuters. Until its merger with The Thomson Corporation in 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent company, Reuters Group PLC, which was also a provider of financial market data, with news reporting comprising less than 10% of the company’s income.^[2] All of Thomson Reuters’ financial market data activities have now been combined into a single Markets Division, of which the Reuters news agency forms a part.

Beginnings

The 23 November 1878 Reuters Telegram telling of the Battle of Ali Masjid.

Reuters Docklands Technical Centre, London

Paul Julius Reuter noticed that, with the electric telegraph, news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In the 1850s, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen — then in the Kingdom of Prussia, now in Germany — close to the borders with the Netherlands and Belgium. He began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, there was a 76-mile (122 km) gap in the line between Aachen and Brussels, Belgium’s capital city and financial center. Reuter saw an opportunity to speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin by using homing pigeons to bridge that gap.

In 1851, Reuter moved to London. After failures in 1847 and 1850, attempts by the Submarine Telegraph Company to lay an undersea telegraph cable across the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, promised success. Reuter set up his “Submarine Telegraph” office in October 1851 just before the opening of that undersea cable in November, and he negotiated a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from exchanges in continental Europe in return for access to the London prices, which he then supplied to stockbrokers in Paris. In 1865, Reuter’s private firm was restructured, and it became a limited company (a corporation) called the Reuter’s Telegram Company. Reuter had been naturalised as a British subject in 1857.

Reuter’s agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report news scoops from abroad, such as Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Almost every major news outlet in the world now subscribes to Reuters’ services, which operates in over 200 cities in 94 countries in about 20 languages.

The last surviving member of the Reuters family founders, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died at age 96 on 25 January 2009, after having suffered a series of strokes.^[3]

[edit] Initial public offering (IPO)

Reuters was financed as a public company in 1984 on the London Stock Exchange and on the NASDAQ in the United States. However, there were concerns that the company’s tradition for objective reporting might be jeopardised if control of the company later fell into the hands of a single shareholder. To counter that possibility, the constitution of the company at the time of the stock offering included a rule that no individual was allowed to own more than 15% of the company. If this limit is exceeded, the directors can order the shareholder to reduce the holding to less than 15%. That rule was applied in the late 1980s when Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation, which already held around 15% of Reuters, bought an Australian news company that also owned stock in Reuters. Murdoch was subsequently compelled to reduce his holdings to less than 15%.

Further protecting Reuters from owner actions that might threaten its independence is Reuters Founders Share Company Limited, formed in 1984 as part of the share float. This company’s stated mission is to protect the integrity of the company’s news output. It holds one “Founders Share,” which can veto all other shares if an attempt is made to alter any of the rules relating to the Reuters Trust Principles. These principles set out the company’s aims of independence, integrity, and freedom from bias in its news reporting.^[4] Subsequent to the forming of Thomson Reuters the trust principles continued, with the RFSC now holding a Founders Share in each of Thomson Reuters Corporation and Thomson Reuters PLC.^[5]

[edit] Post-IPO Expansion

Reuters grew rapidly after its 1984 IPO, widening the range of its business products and global reporting network for media, financial and economic services. In 1988, Reuters formed a joint-venture with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to build an automated futures trading system named “Globex” at a cost of over USD$100 million.^[6] Key product launches include Equities 2000 (1987), Dealing 2000-2 (1992), Business Briefing (1994), Reuters Television for the financial markets (1994), 3000 Series (1996) and the Reuters 3000 Xtra service (1999). In the mid-1990s, the Reuters company engaged in a brief foray in the radio sector — with London Radio’s two radio stations, London News 97.3 FM and London News Talk 1152 AM. A Reuters Radio News service was also set up to compete with the Independent Radio News. In 1995, Reuters established its “Greenhouse Fund” to take minority investments in start-up technology companies, initially in the USA, only. In October 2007, Reuters Market Light, a division of Reuters, launched a mobile phone service for Indian farmers to provide local and customised commodity pricing information, news, and weather updates.

[edit] Thomson merger

On 15 May 2007, Canada’s The Thomson Corporation merged with Reuters in a deal valued at US $17.2 billion. Thomson now controls about 53 percent of the new company, named Thomson Reuters. The chief of Thomson Reuters is Tom Glocer, the former head of Reuters. An earlier rule of 15-percent maximum ownership was waived; the reason as given by Pehr Gyllenhammar, the chairman of the Reuters Founders Share Company, as that the “future of Reuters takes precedence over the principles. If Reuters were not strong enough to continue on its own, the principles would have no meaning.”^[7] citing the recent bad financial performance of the company. The acquisition was closed on 17 April 2008.

[edit] Journalists

Reuters employs several thousand journalists, sometimes at the cost of their lives. In May 2000, Kurt Schork, an American reporter, was killed in an ambush while on assignment in Sierra Leone. In April and August 2003, news cameramen Taras Protsyuk and Mazen Dana were killed in separate incidents by US troops in Iraq. In July 2007, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed when they were fired upon by a US military Apache helicopter in Baghdad after having been mistakenly identified as carrying weapons.^[8] During 2004, cameramen Adlan Khasanov in Chechnya and Dhia Najim in Iraq were also killed. In April 2008, cameraman Fadel Shana was killed in the Gaza Strip after being hit by an Israeli tank using flechettes.^[9] The first Reuters journalist to be taken hostage in action was Anthony Grey. Detained while covering the Cultural Revolution in Peking in the late 1960s, it was said to be in response to the jailing of several Chinese journalists by the colonial British Government in Hong Kong.^[10] He was considered to be the first political hostage of the modern age and was released after almost 2 years of solitary confinement. Awarded an OBE by the British Government in recognition of this, he went on to become a best selling author.

[edit] Fatalities

Name	Nationality	Location	Date
Kurt Schork	American	Sierra Leone	24 May 2000
Taras Protsyuk	Ukrainian	Iraq	8 April 2003
Mazen Dana	Palestinian	Iraq	17 August 2003
Adlan Khasanov	Russian	Chechnya	9 May 2004
Dhia Najim	Iraqi	Iraq	1 November 2004
Waleed Khaled	Iraqi	Iraq	28 August 2005
Namir Noor-Eldeen	Iraqi	Iraq	12 July 2007[11]
Saeed Chmagh	Iraqi	Iraq	12 July 2007[11]
Fadel Shana	Palestinian	Gaza Strip	16 April 2008
Hiro Muramoto	Japanese	Thailand	10 April 2010
Sabah al-Bazee	Iraqi	Iraq	29 March 2011

[edit] Acquisitions & Investments

• Action Images — In September 2005, Reuters purchased North London-based Action Images, a collection of sports photography of more than 8 million images, of which 1.7 million are online.
• Application Networks — In June 2006, Reuters acquired Application Networks, Inc., a provider of trade and risk management software based on JRisk, and agreed to acquire Feri Fund Market Information Ltd (FERI FMI) and its fund database subsidiary, FI Datenservice GmbH (FID).^[12]
• AVT Technologies — In December 2002, Reuters announced that it would acquire AVT Technologies, a specialist in foreign exchange transaction technology. Concurrent with the deal, Reuters established an Automated Dealing Technologies business unit, headed up by Mark Redwood, CEO of AVT Technologies.
• Bridge Information Systems — On 28 September 2001, it completed the largest acquisition in its history with a partial acquisition of Bridge Information Systems Inc. Also during the year, the Group acquired 100% of Diagram fip SA and 92% of ProTrader Group LP. In October 2001, the Group disposed of its majority stake in VentureOne Corp.
• ClearForest — In June 2007, Reuters acquired ClearForest,^[13] a provider of Text Analytics solutions, whose tagging platform and analytical products allow clients to derive business information from textual content.
• EcoWin — In November 2005, Reuters acquired EcoWin, a Gothenburg (Sweden) based provider of global fianancial, equities, and economic data.
• Factiva — In May 1999, Reuters entered a joint venture with rival Dow Jones & Company to form Factiva,^[14] a business news and information provider. In December 2006, Reuters sold its 50% share in Factiva to Dow Jones, who is now sole owner.^[15]
• Instinet — In May 2001, Instinet completed an IPO on NASDAQ; Reuters sold its majority stake in Instinet to The Nasdaq Stock Market in 2005.
• Multex.com Inc. — In March 2003, Reuters acquired Multex.com, Inc., a provider of global financial information.
• TIBCO Software — In July 1999, TIBCO Software completed an IPO on NASDAQ; Reuters retains a substantial proportion of the shares. Reuters announced, in early 2000, initiatives designed to migrate core business to an internet-based model.

[edit] Corporate locations

The Reuters Building in Canary Wharf, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Thomson Reuters Building at Times Square, Midtown Manhattan

From 1939, corporate headquarters was in London’s famous Fleet Street in a building designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. In 2005, Reuters moved to a larger building in the more modern Canary Wharf. The Reuters Building at 30 South Colonnade is near the One Canada Square tower, Jubilee Park and Canary Wharf tube station. The open space below the Reuters building has since been renamed Reuters Plaza.

The company’s North American headquarters is the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square, New York. It is on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, and was constructed from 1998 to 2001.^[16] Asian headquarters is located in Singapore, having moved there from Hong Kong ahead of the British handover to China in 1997. It has two offices in Singapore, one in the city centre at One Raffles Quay, and another at 18 Science Park Drive next to the National University of Singapore.

[edit] Criticism and controversy

[edit] Policy of objective language

Reuters has a strict policy towards upholding journalistic objectivity. This policy has caused comment on the possible insensitivity of its non-use of the word terrorist in reports, including the September 11 attacks. Reuters has been careful to only use the word terrorist in quotes, whether quotations or scare quotes. Reuters global news editor Stephen Jukes wrote, “We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist.” The Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz responded, “After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and again after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Reuters allowed the events to be described as acts of terror. But as of last week, even that terminology is banned.” Reuters later apologised for this characterisation of their policy,^[17] although they maintained the policy itself.

The 20 September 2004 edition of The New York Times reported that the Reuters Global Managing Editor, David A. Schlesinger, objected to Canadian newspapers’ editing of Reuters articles by inserting the word terrorist, stating that “my goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity”.^[18]

However, when reporting the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the service reported, “Police said they suspected terrorists were behind the bombings.” This line appeared to break with their previous policy and was also criticised.^[19] Reuters later clarified by pointing out they include the word “when we are quoting someone directly or in indirect speech,” and the headline was an example of the latter.^[20] The news organisation has subsequently used “terrorist” without quotations when the article clarifies that it is someone else’s words.

[edit] Photograph controversies / Anti-Israel Bias

Main article: 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies

See also: Adnan Hajj photographs controversy

Reuters was accused of bias against Israel in its coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, in which the company used two doctored photos by a Lebanese freelance photographer Adnan Hajj.^[21] On 7 August 2006, Reuters announced^[22] it severed all ties with Hajj and said his photographs would be removed from its database.

In 2010, Reuters was criticised again for anti-Israeli bias when it cropped out activists’ knives and a naval commando’s blood from photographs taken aboard the Mavi Marmara during the Gaza flotilla raid.^[23][24] In two separate photographs, knives held by the activists were edited out of the versions of the pictures published by Reuters.^[23][24][25] The live arms wielded by the Israeli forces who had boarded the ship were not cropped out.

[edit] Antitrust issues

In November 2009, The European Commission opened formal anti-trust proceedings^[26] against Thomson Reuters concerning a potential infringement of the EC Treaty’s rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82). The Commission will investigate Thomson Reuters’ practices in the area of real-time market datafeeds, and in particular whether customers or competitors are prevented from translating Reuters Instrument Codes (RICs) to alternative identification codes of other datafeed suppliers (so-called ‘mapping’) to the detriment of competition.

The opening of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of an infringement. It signifies that the Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.

Official website reuters

From Wikipedia

Failbook

By Sujendro

Failbook is a comedic blog website which primarily focuses on screenshots of humorous genuine status updates uploaded onto Facebook, with messages being sent from users who often have their identities removed. The first “fail” was placed onto the website on December 3, 2009. It is often regarded as a sister website to Fail Blog, a website which focuses on people failing at tasks that they attempt. Failbook is a subdivision of I Can Has Cheezburger?, which is owned by Pet Holdings Incorporated.

The format of the website is similar to the one of another website, known by the name of Lamebook. That website is owned by Lamebook LLC and had its first update placed onto the website on April 23, 2009, just over seven months before Failbook was launched.

 

Official website failbook.failblog

From Wikipedia

Fail Blog

By Sujendro

Fail Blog (typeset as FAIL Blog) is a comedic blog website created in January 2008.

History

The blog steadily grew in popularity, and in May 2008 was sold to Pet Holdings Inc., owner of I Can Has Cheezburger?, becoming part of the now Cheezburger Network. The site prominently features pictures and videos of someone (or something) failing at something they are supposed to do captioned with the words “fail”, “epic fail”, “X Fail”, “X; You’re doin’ it wrong” (X being the activity at which the subject has failed), “Things That are doing it”, “M thru F; fails in the workplace”, and “Probably Bad News”, although occasionally there are some cases of “wins”. The first “fail” was uploaded to the website on January 3, 2008. Since this date, the site has grown rapidly, with the style of the images used on the site growing to become a popular internet meme, and many other smaller sites have spurred after the meme’s popularization.

 

Official website failblog

From Wikipedia

Geekologie

By Sujendro

Geekologie is a popular geek blog dedicated to the recognition of gadgets and technology. Each article is coupled with humorous commentary about the featured story or item written by the blog’s only author. Geekologie was founded on April 2, 2006, and the first post was on April 4, 2006. As of October 19, 2010, the current Geekologie Writer has written over 7,000 posts.

Weblog

Geekologie is updated multiple times a day with articles on gadgets, video games, consumer electronics and popular culture related to games and movies.

 

Official website Geekologie

From Wikipedia

Mashable

By Sujendro

Mashable is an American news website and Internet news blog founded by Pete Cashmore.^[6] The website’s primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets. Mashable was launched by Pete Cashmore from his home in Aberdeen, Scotland in July 2005.

With a reported 50+ million monthly pageviews and an Alexa ranking under 250, Mashable ranks as one of the world’s largest websites. Time Magazine noted Mashable as one the 25 best blogs in 2009, and has been described as “one stop shop” for social media. As of February 2011, it has over two million Twitter followers and over 425,000 fans on Facebook.

On March 9, 2009, Mashable announced that it had acquired Blippr, a micro-reviews service based on the concept that users can review games, books, movies, music, and web applications in 160 characters or less.

 

Official website Mashable

From Wikipedia

The Sydney Morning Herald

By Sujendro

The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper’s Sunday counterpart, The Sun-Herald, is published in tabloid format. It is available at outlets in Sydney, regional New South Wales, Canberra and South East Queensland (Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast).

Overview

The Sydney Morning Herald is historically credited with high standards of journalism.

The Saturday edition includes lift-out sections such as News Review and arts and entertainment guide Spectrum. The SMH publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines Good Weekend and the(sydney)magazine; and the lift-outs The Guide (television), Good Living (food), Essential (lifestyle), Money (personal finance) and Metro (entertainment). The lift-outs Domain (real estate), Drive (motoring) and MyCareer (employment) are co-branded with Fairfax Media’s online classified advertising sites. Defunct sections include a dot-com section called “Biz.com” published in the late 1990s and a youth section called “Radar” published in the early 2000s. In a cost-cutting drive, editorial production of several of these sections was outsourced in 2008.

In 2007 the paper sold an average of 212,700 copies per weekday and an average 364,000 copies on Saturdays, compared with its Sydney rival, The Daily Telegraph, which sold an average of 392,000 copies per weekday and 340,000 copies on Saturdays.

The editor is Amanda Wilson. Former editors include Frederick William Ward, Charles Brunsdon Fletcher, Colin Bingham, Max Prisk, John Alexander, Paul McGeough, Alan Revell, Alan Oakley and Peter Fray.^{[citation needed]}

History

The cover to the newspaper’s first edition, on 18 April 1831

Three employees of the now-defunct Sydney Gazette, Ward Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie, founded The Sydney Herald in 1831. The four-page weekly had a print run of 750. In 1840, the newspaper began to publish daily. In 1841, an Englishman named John Fairfax purchased the operation, renaming it The Sydney Morning Herald the following year. Fairfax, whose family were to control the newspaper for almost 150 years, based his editorial policies “upon principles of candour, honesty and honour. We have no wish to mislead; no interest to gratify by unsparing abuse or indiscriminate approbation.”

The SMH was late to the trend of printing news rather than just advertising on the front page, doing so from 15 April 1944. Of the country’s metropolitan dailies, only The West Australian was later in making the switch. In 1949, the newspaper launched a Sunday edition, The Sunday Herald. Four years later, this was merged with the newly-acquired Sun newspaper to create The Sun-Herald, which continues to this day.

In 1995, the company launched smh.com.au, the newspaper’s web edition. The site has since grown to include interactive and multimedia features beyond the content in the print edition. Around the same time, the organisation moved from Jones Street to new offices at Darling Park and built a new printing press at Chullora, in the city’s west. The SMH has since moved with other Sydney Fairfax divisions to a building at Darling Island.

Like its stablemate The Age, the Herald announced in early 2007 that it would be moving from a broadsheet format to the smaller “compact” size, in the footsteps of The Times. Both the Age and the Herald dumped these plans later in the year without explanation, to the amusement of The Australian’s Chris Mitchell, who called the about-face “a bit embarrassing”.

Political viewpoint

Historically, the SMH has been a conservative newspaper as evidenced by the fact that it did not endorse the Australian Labor Party at any election until 1984 or at a state election until 2003. The newspaper has in recent years attempted to spearhead political campaigns, including the “Campaign for Sydney” (planning and transport) and “Earth Hour” (environment).

In a surprise move, the Herald declined to endorse a party at the 2004 federal election, in line with a decision that it would “no longer endorse one party or another at election time”. The newspaper noted that the policy might yet be revised: “A truly awful government of any colour, for example, would bring reappraisal.” The Herald subsequently endorsed the conservative Coalition at the 2007 NSW State election, but endorsed Labor at the 2007 and 2010 Federal elections.

Notable contributors

• Malcolm Brown
• Mike Cockerill
• Anne Davies
• Peter FitzSimons
• Ross Gittins
• Peter Hartcher
• Gerard Henderson
• Adele Horin
• David Marr
• Roy Masters
• Paul Sheehan

Ownership

Main article: Fairfax Media

Fairfax went public in 1957 and grew to acquire interests in magazines, radio and television. The group collapsed spectacularly on 11 December 1990 when Warwick Fairfax, great-great-grandson of John Fairfax, attempted to privatise the group by borrowing $1.8 billion. The group was bought by Conrad Black before being re-listed in 1992. In 2006, Fairfax announced a merger with Rural Press, which brought a Fairfax family member, John B. Fairfax, in as a significant player in the company.

Column 8

Column 8 is a short column to which Herald readers send their observations of interesting happenings. It was first published on 11 January 1947. The name comes from the fact that it originally occupied the final (8th) column of the broadsheet newspaper’s front page. In a front-page redesign in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, Column 8 moved to the back page of the first section from 31 July 2000.

The content tends to the quirky, typically involving strange urban occurrences, instances of confusing signs (often in Engrish), word play, and discussion of more or less esoteric topics.

The column is also sometimes affectionately known as Granny, after a fictional grandmother who supposedly edited it. The old Granny logo was used for the first 20 years of the column and is occasionally resurrected for a special retrospective. The logo was a caricature of Sydney Deamer, originator of the column and its author for 14 years.

It was edited for 15 years by George Richards, who retired on 31 January 2004.Other editors besides Deamer and Richards have been Duncan Thompson, Bill Fitter, Col Allison, Jim Cunningham, and briefly, Peter Bowers and Lenore Nicklin. The column is currently edited by Pat Sheil.

Opinion

The Opinion section is a regular of the daily newspaper, containing opinion on a wide range of issues. Mostly concerned with relevant political, legal and cultural issues, the section showcases work by regular columnists, including Herald political columnist Phillip Coorey, Paul Sheehan and Richard Ackland, as well occasional reader-submitted content.

Criticised by some for adopting a “liberal standpoint” within general reporting, the Opinion section of the Herald is often praised for its comparatively varied ideological showcase. It often publishes articles written by politicians from both sides of the political spectrum, with former Treasurer, Peter Costello, current Federal Minister for Social Inclusion and Human Services, Tanya Plibersek, and Shadow Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull all regular contributors.

The Herald and its opinion section is in direct competition with Sydney daily, The Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph is considered a conservative paper, showing support for the centre-right Australian coalition within both the state and federal arenas. The Telegraph is a Murdoch-owned publication.

Good Weekend

Good Weekend is a liftout magazine that is distributed with both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Saturdays.

It contains, on average, four feature articles written by its stable of writers and syndicated from overseas as well as sections on food, wine and fashion.

Writers include Mark Dapin, Janet Hawley, Amanda Hooton, John van Tiggelen and Greg Bearup.

There is one page dedicated to trivia: a section called ‘Myth Conceptions’ written by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki contains interesting science facts, as well as a quiz and statistics; “Your Time Starts Now” interviews a range of well-known people.

Other sections include “Modern Guru”, which features humorous columnists including Danny Katz responding to the everyday dilemmas of readers; a Samurai Sudoku; and “The Two Of Us”, containing interviews with a pair of close friends, relatives or colleagues.

Good Weekend has been edited by Judith Whelan since 2004. The deputy editor is Lauren Quaintance and the associate editor is Cindy MacDonald. The previous editor was Fenella Souter.

Other Australian weekend magazines are included in The Australian and The Sun-Herald newspapers as well as the (sydney) magazine in The Sydney Morning Herald which is distributed once per month.

References

1. “Calling them to account”. Peter Manning. University of Technology Sydney. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
2. “State of the News Print Media in Australia 2007: Circulation”. Australian Press Council. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
3. “In pursuit of readers, Fairfax plans to shrink its papers”. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
4. Manning, James (2008-03-10). “National daily plans new business website and monthly colour magazine”. MediaWeek (Sydney, Australia) (854): 3, 7, 8.
5. “It’s time for a vote of greater independence”. Editorial (The Sydney Morning Herald). 2004-10-07.
6. “Why NSW cannot afford four more years of Labor”. Editorial (The Sydney Morning Herald). 2007-03-22.
7. “The more they stay the same …”. Editorial (The Sydney Morning Herald). 2007-11-24.
8. Ruth Park (1999). Ruth Park’s Sydney. Duffy & Snellgrove. ISBN 1-875989-45-5.
9. ^{a b c} “26.19 Granny George calls it a day” (PDF). Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter (Queensland: ANHG via the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism & Communication Website) (26): 5. February 2004. ISSN 1443-4962. Archived from the original on 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
10. ^{a b} “8.37 Changes in the Herald: Who will make me smile before breakfast?” (PDF). Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter (Queensland: ANHG via the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism & Communication Website) (8): 17–18. August 2000. ISSN 1443-4962. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
11. “41.26 Has the world gone mad? Column 8 at 60” (PDF). Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter (Queensland: ANHG via the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism & Communication Website) (41): 8. February 2007. ISSN 1443-4962. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
12. Souter, Gavin (1983). “Deamer, Sydney Harold (1891–1962)”. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
13. ^{a b} Ramsey, Alan (4 February 2004). “George has moved on but his Granny still lives”. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
14. “32.31 Column 8 Changes Style” (PDF). Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter (Queensland: ANHG via the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism & Communication Website) (32). May 2005. ISSN 1443-4962. Archived from the original on 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2008-01-15. “The Column 8 has a new editor, Pat Sheil, and he is changing the style of the 58-year-old Sydney Morning Herald column. “I am trying to make it a bit edgier than it was,” he told MediaWeek(11 April 2005, p.6). “Basically, Column 8 should be like a chat, without making it too trite or stupid.” George Richards edited Column 8 for fifteen and a half years before retiring early last year (see ANHG 26.19). James Cockington edited it until handing over to Sheil in February this year.”.

links

• Earth Hour archive
• Digitised historic Sydney Morning Herald from the National Library of Australia
• Digitised historic Sydney Herald from the National Library of Australia
• Digitised historic Sun Herald from the National Library of Australia