To put it simply, I'm trying to understand how the news industry works?'.

Let's take a hypothetical case of me developing a website where the
latest news from around the world is published although the major part
of the news is regarding India. In order to get this working I need to
understand how the news industry works. I am aware of services like
AP, Reuters etc. How do I contact them? What's their fee structure?

On yahoo.com I see a news headline 'Tony Blair Shakes Up Cabinet After
Losses' from AP. When I click on the link I get a full page text. Did
AP provide just the header info or the full text to yahoo? If AP
provided the full text then all  consumers should provide the exactly
indentical copy of the news. How frequently the news are published.
What are the ways to consume the messages? Do I
need to pay a flat fee for news consumption or is it in any way
related to how many clicks I get on  the news published on the site.

I'm from India which agency I need to contact for news related to
these two countries.

I thought a student of 'media and communication' in a college should
know answers to some of the questions. I looked for a book on this
topic but couldn't find any good book. Could you please recommend some
books/resources to dig dipper into this issue.

---

Request for Question Clarification by majortom-ga on 05 May 2006 12:46 PDT

Hi dorelal,

Are you seeking to know:
1) how to add a syndicated news service to your website (with fee structure)
and 
2) which services best cover India?

I would be happy to research these questions for you if that is the
core of what you would like to know.

---

Clarification of Question by dorelal-ga on 07 May 2006 17:19 PDT

1) First question was "how to add a syndicated news service to your
website". In order to answer this question I just want to make sure
that I have correct understanding of meaning of 'syndicated news
service'.

On my website I want to provide the news to the people. I do NOT want
to provide news as a service to other consumers who in turn will
provide news to the end users. The site will provide news to the end
users just like any other news site.

2) Second question "which services best cover India?". Since the site
is going to be about news related to India, I would like to know what
services will provide news related to India.

Thanks.

---

Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 14 May 2006 05:25 PDT

Dear Doerlal, 

I can explain to you how to publish news on your site and how it works
in general. However, regarding pricing - it seems that these companies
are very keen on keeping the prices hidden. They will not publish a
quote, but give you contact information to get the quote yourself.
Would that be OK?

---

Clarification of Question by dorelal-ga on 15 May 2006 15:53 PDT

That will be fine. If possible could you please also add what do I
need to display stock index (sensex for india).

Dear Dorelal, 

First of all, I apologise for not posting my answer earlier. Among
other things, I have been waiting for answers from various news
agencies regarding pricing (which I haven't received, at the end).

In general, large news organisations like news papers have their own
reporters to rely on, but they also reply on news agencies. These
organisations - some of the household names are Reuters and Associated
Press that you've mentioned, some are less reknown - sell news, in all
sorts of mediums (written reports, television/ video/ streaming,
pictures, etc.) to web sites.

Whe Yahoo! News has an article, they have bought the rights to publish
it from AP or Reuters - you cannot just buy the title, and usually you
buy whole packages. As for amending the content a little, this depends
on the terms of your agreement - sometimes editorial work is allowed
(omitting parts of the article, changing the style somewhat).

For example, Reuters sell to Websites: 

Reuters - Services to Websites
<http://about.reuters.com/media/categories/online/> 

As you can see if you go further on "reports", you can get news that
are relevant first and foremost to India:
Asia Region Specific Services
<http://about.reuters.com/media/categories/online/reports/byregion/default.aspx?category=1050&region=5>

You can also try to contact their customer support for more
information on their packages:

Reuters Sales Enquiry
<http://about.reuters.com/media/contact/> 

Associated Press, as mentioned before, is the main competition to
Reuters and offer similar services.

"If you are not a member of The Associated Press, but want to receive
AP news for your Web site or wireless service, company intranet,
desktop or other interactive application, you can contact AP Digital
by e-mail at APDigital@ap.org." (SOURCE: "5. How can I become a member
of The Associated Press and receive AP services?"
<http://www.ap.org/pages/about/faq.html#5>).

AP Digital is available here:
<http://www.apdigitalnews.com/> 

Both AP and Reuters have financial news and you can get such a feed
from them with the latest stock exchange/financial news. However, a
company that is very famous for providing this content is Bloomberg.

The Sales department: 
Bloomberg
<http://about.bloomberg.com/about/sales.html> 

In addition, for a site concentrating on India, it might be best to
try some Indian news agencies:

Press Trust of India
<http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf> - offers news in English and
in Hindi. If their subscription page doesn't open outside the frame
(http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/TitleFrame?OpenForm&BaseTarget=Main),
try to approach it from the main page.

United News of India
<http://www.uniindia.com/> - also bilingual (English and Hindi) The
subscription page is, again, availbale only through the main page.
("subscribe" on the top right corner).

***

However, these subscription services cost money. An alternative could
be to publish only the headlines - with a link to a site that has paid
the rights to publish the article; and not to publish the article
itself.

This could be done using an RSS feed to your site and publishing the
latest headlines as they update from sites that gather links to news
sites. ONe such site is Google News.

Google News India
<http://news.google.com/news?ned=in> 

Google News is not a news site. It is a site that collects the latest
headlines and brings links to them.

"Google News RSS feeds can be re-used in your website via the magic of
"content syndication." If you've got a site powered by a modern
open-source content management system (CMS) such as Plone you can
easily include any RSS feed in your website. Which means that you
could have an automatically-updated "news clips" section of your
website, powered by Google News RSS feeds. If you don't have a modern
CMS powering your website, you can use a tool like Carp, and a bit of
HTML knowledge, to include RSS feeds on your site."
(SOURCE: "Two News Tools: CommonTimes and Google News RSS Feeds",
<http://blogs.onenw.org/onelist/001902.html>).

Tools for having Google News headlines/links on your site: 

Plone
<http://plone.org/> 

Geckotribe
<http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/> 

Here is a little more information, and the Google News terms of service
 About Feeds and Terms of Use
<http://news.google.com/intl/en_in/news_feed_terms.html> 

Another free alternative is a programme called MEAD, which summarises
news and - again - links to other news sites, which have published the
article in full.

MEAD
<http://www.summarization.com/mead/> 

In order to know more about MEAD, and to see how it looks like, visit: 
News-in-Essence
<http://lada.si.umich.edu:8080/clair/nie1/nie.cgi> 

I hope this answers your questions. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it.