Reuters started about the same time as AP: mid 19th century.
I first became aware of this Reuters/AP stranglehold on the news when there was a murder on Haifa Street in Baghdad: a car with election workers was stopped, the workers were dragged out of the car, murdered, and life went on. Photos were taken of this event. Richard of Belmont Club noted that the photo thing showed every sign of being a set-up… ie, the election workers were killed BECAUSE the photographer was an AP stringer, whose photo would have millions of readers around the world.
Anyway, I found that the board members of AP own strings of newspapers through the US heartland, exactly the areas that are providing most of American soldiers in Iraq. I send a package of information to each of the Board members (one of whom, by the way, owns newspapers in Tennessee).. and of course received no answer. These Board Members must be very rich: according to a recent remark by John Podhoretz, the profit margin on such newspapers have been 20 to 30%. However, this is disappearing.
There is hope: Drudgereport has 600 MILLION hits per month. Craigslist and others like it (ie, ebay, etc) are killing the newspapers’ prime money maker: classified ads. I don’t know what Pajamas Media has right now, but it is getting better all the time, and supports independent reporters like Richard Hernandez, and Michael Totten, etc etc. Thank gracious for the internet!
