Development in Newspaper Organization
One of the most important developments in newspaper organization during the first part of the twentieth century ______1_______, which are known as wire services. Wire-service companies employed reporters, who covered stories all over the world. Their news reports were sent to papers throughout the country by telegraph. The papers paid an annual fee for this service. Wire services continue _______2________. Today the major wire services are the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). You will frequently find AP or UPI at the beginning of a news story.
Newspaper chains and mergers began to appear in the early 1900s. A chain consists of two or more newspapers _______3______. A merger involves combining two or more papers into one. During the nineteenth century many cities had more than one competitive independent paper. Today in most cities there are only one or two newspapers, and _______4______. Often newspapers in several cities belong to one chain. Papers have combined ________5_______. Chains and mergers have cut down production costs and brought the advantages of big-business methods to the newspaper industry.
