Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-03-22
ENORMOUS EXPENSE OF
Great news AGENCY
How the Associated Press Col
IectS and Distributes News.
speeches Are Cabled From Europe
That Cost 81 a WOrd-All News
of the World is Handled.
Philadelphia Ledger.)


cellor Won Bethman-Hollweg flashed
to this country. The same amount
was paid for the countless pUnctua-
tions which appeared in the speech.
an audience composed Of bankers,
merchants, cIubmen, society women,
clerks, stenOgrapheTs and labOrers
heard Melvin z. Stone, general manag-
Ell of the Associated Press, quote
prices on what it costs to have the
news flashed to this country from diff
ferent regions of the world.
MI. Stone spoke at the annual meet
ing Of the Franklin Institute. His
lecture was on Supplying the World
with News"
Seated in one Of the back rows was
a white-bearded old man. Both peck
cts Of his fur-lined overcoat were fill
ed with newspapers. Some Of the
pages which were visible, contained
the latest war dispatches. When he
heard Mr.. Stone tell what it cost to
have Chancellor Won Bethman-Holl-
wegs speech cabled over to lower
Broadway in New York, where the
main offices OF the Associated Press
are located he leaned over to. a man
who was sitting beside him and whis-
Dered: And I only paid a few pen
MES to read the speech"
Mr.. Stone gave an historical sketch
of the Associated Press. He describ-
ed the methods which were adopted
III gathering the news of the Russo
Japanese war, the Martinique earth
quake. and the death of Pope Leo XIII
at Rome. The annual budget of the
Associated Press is more than S3,000,-
600. according to Mr.. Stone. Touch
ing upon the methods Of getting the
news in countries which are located
thousands of miles away, Mr.. Stone
gave several Illustrations. He des-
criRed a wrek. a fire and other dis
asters interestingly from a financial
standpoint
Now. assume that a fire has brok-
en- out in Benares, the second city of
the Hindus, on the banks of the Gan
ges." said Mr.. Stone, "and 1000 or
1000 lives are lost. Not far away, at
Allahabad or Calcutta, is daily pa
per having a correspondent at Ben
ares, who reports the disaster fully
Someone on his paper sends the story,
or as much of it as is of general in
terest rather than local, to the agent
OF the Reuter- company at Calcutta
Bombay or Madras And thence it is
cabled to London, HOngkOng, Sidney,
and Toxic. At each of these places
there are Associated Press men, one
of whom picks it and forwards to New
York
"It the thing happens in Zanzibar
the story goes either to Cairo or Cape
Town, and by the same process finds
its way to London and on to use in
this country. Thus the wide world is
comDed for news, which in an incredi-
bly, short time is delivered and print
everywhere.
When Pope Leo XIII died in Rome
the fact was announced by an Asso-
ciated Press telegram in the columns
of San Francisco paper in nine min
Utes from the instant when he breath
ed his last. And this message was
repeated back to London, Paris, and
Berlin, and gave those cities the first
information of the event.
'When Port Arthur was taken by
the japanese in 1894 it came to us in
New York in fifty minutes, although
it passed through twenty-seven relay
Offices. Few of the operators trans
hitting it knew what the dispatch
meant. But they understood the Latin
letters and sent it on from station to
station letter by letter.
When Peary came back from his
great discovery in the Artic sea, he
reached Winter Harbor, on the coast
of Labrador, and from there sent me
a wireless message that he had nailed
the stars and stripes to the North Pole.
This went to Sidney to Cape Breton is
land, and was forwarded by cable and
telegraph to New York.
For its domestic service other
methods are adopted The territory
covered includes the United States
proper, Alaska, the Hawaiian islands,
the Philippines, the islands of the
Caribbean sea, Mexico, the Central
American states, and, by an exchange
It'd, the British possessions on this
continent
The organization is, as you have
been told, cooperative in its charac-
ter. As condition of membership,
each one belonging agrees to furnish
to his fellow members. either direct
II or through the association and to
them exclusively, the news of his vi
cinity. as gathered by him for his own
paper. This constitutes the large
fountain from which our American
news supply is drawn But, as in the
case of the foreign official agencies
if there be danger that an individual
member is biased, or if the matter is
one of high Importance, we use our
own trained and salaried staff men to
do the reporting. For this purpose
as well as for administrative work, we
have a bureau in every leading city
When the European war broke out