News Imperialism? (author unknown) presents an interesting argument about the role of news agencies (e.g. AP, Reuters which provide news to local newspapers) as manifestations of Western neo-imperialism. Some developing nations and dependency theorists have raised the argument that the West controls the diffusion of international news through its monopoly on international news agencies. The author begins the article by demonstrating how expensive it is to maintain news bureaus abroad, and how little revenue these outposts can generate, making them prohibitively expensive for all but the largest, wealthiest newspapers. So, organizations like the Associated Press arose to pool the resources of many papers to maintain staff in far flung locales. Even large newspapers, like The York Times, can’t have correspondents everywhere, or find it cheaper and easier to use a wire service, giving a small handful of agencies tremendous control of international news flow.

In the developing world, the problem is compounded. No Third World newspapers can afford to have their own staff abroad, so they must rely entirely on news agencies for their international and even regional news. These agencies are exclusively located in industrialized West (or North, or Core), “distort[ing] international knowledge of the cultural, political and economic progress of the Third World” (p. 70). Western journalistic philosophy, the author argues, is to focus mainly on “aberrational” events (e.g. “war, crime, corruption, disaster, famine, fire, flood” p. 70) portraying a excessively negative image of the Third World in the First World (which then gets feedback to the Third World). The author then gives a sweeping history of news agencies and their imperialist tactics since the 19th century, showing how four agencies have come to dominate global news (AP, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, UPI). The article is outdated (making references to the Soviet Union), but still presents an interesting argument that should be discussed in a class on global media.

The historical stratagem of news agencies, at least according to this author, took a overtly imperialist approach and reflected many of the more recognized forms of state-sponsored imperialism. Towards the end of the 19th century, for example, the major European news agencies “carved up” the world between them. This reminded me of events like the Berlin Conference in the 1880’s which divvied up Africa. The news agencies of the respective colonial powers (e.g. Reuters in England) took control of their empire’s colonies and became a tool of colonial rule, with our without overt cooperation with the governments. Sometimes, there was even outright collusion, like when the head of Reurers’ was “appointed director of propaganda” during WWII (p.80). This legacy has carried on to the present day (or when the article was written). Because the South lacks control of these information flows, we (in the North) get a image of the Third World consisting of only murderers, terrorists and corrupt officials (p.110). Despite the application of the same journalistic philosophy, this does not happen to the US or France or Germany because of their own journalism; diffusion of a more positive image through popular culture, physical and cultural exports; and the work of foreign journalists within these countries (p. 109).

News also flows disproportionately North to South because reporters are overwhelmingly located in the developed world so that “Third World papers pay as much attention to lives of American celebrities…as they do to comparable personalities and issues in their own societies” (p.72). The author supplies tables to demonstrate this disparity. Communist “imperialism” (though the term is totally inappropriate) has (or actually had) a news agency as well. Russia’s Tass and China’s Hsin Hua played more directly “imperialistic” roles, selling overtly sensational or propagandistic news designed to aid Communist expansion abroad (p.80-85).

Ultimately, however, the author concludes that the news agencies themselves are not really to blame for this problem, but that it is really a product of the West’s “pre-existing image of the developing world” and its “selfishness and paternalism” (p.110). So the problem is much bigger than, and exists outside of the control of these agencies; but the author argues that journalists should be the ones to help break the cycle. “Journalism of the West is helping arrest the historic process of development,” and if there is anywhere this can be resolved, he continues, “it is there, in the intractable issue of information, though it may take a leap of imagination to achieve it” (p.110).

While outdated, I think this article presents a very interesting point which has been touched upon in class with things like ‘the CNN vs. the Al Jezeera Effects’. The narrative is largely controlled in the First World, I agree with the author about this, but I do not agree with his conclusion that the Western journalist must be the one to break this cycle. This would help, certainly, and if we created an Al Jazeera-like operation in Africa (and Latin America, and Pacific Islander etc. etc.) that is a step in the right direction, but not complete. Just as we concluded that you can’t avoid making ethno-graphic portrayals in The Devil Came on Horseback, I think it is impossible for the western journalist to escape the history paternalism and negativity when reporting on the Third World. The developing world is home to more “war, disaster, famine” etc. than the North because of its socio-economic problems, so these issues cannot be avoided in reporting on the Third World. Paternalism is also an inescapable product of the current geo-political reality: aid for war, disaster and famine relief comes almost entirely from the developed world; international norms of human rights were created by European and American actors; and the nature of the post-Cold War Western “psyche” is to try to fix the war , disaster and famine where they occur (usually the South). For example, I doubt anyone would call Nick Kristof of the New York Times, a neo-imperialist, he writes extensively about the global South. But he chooses to report on negative things like the Darfur crisis. Furthermore, his articles on Darfur are extremely paternal; they aim to raise awareness so that one day, perhaps, the West will take real action to engage in Darfur, because Sudan or the AU won’t or can’t do it on their own. I don’t think this is wrong, I think the political reality is that the West has to be somewhat paternalistic if it wishes to prevent things like genocide in Sudan. So if the Western journalists can’t do it, then who can?

If the news agencies are the “nuclear weapons” of our George Orwell paradigm, then it will be the small arms fire of new global media that will fight this battle. Already we see bloggers, filmmakers, independent journalists etc. in the Third World reporting on their lives from in an unmediated fashion (well, less mediated at least). The democratization of media works not only from large corporation to individual, but from North the South, center to periphery. I hope that this will help break the cycle of News Imperialism discussed in this article.