Reuters and the Goverments before The World War I: A Case Study

Abstract

Before the World War I, Havas, Wolff’s, and Reuters agencies signed confidential agreements with several governments, promising to serve them in various ways. These agencies concluded contracts with any government that was willing to subsidize them, treated news as an ordinary commodity. To convince statesmen to sign agreements with them, the agencies took advantage of world politics and tensions between empires. By this way, Wolff’s overcame its vulnerability to Havas and Reuters while Havas defied competition in its home market and secured a large subsidy from the Russian Empire for more than a decade. Likewise, Reuters signed confidential agreements with the Japanese and the British empires and was subsidized by the Egyptian government for more than five decades. From the second half of the nineteenth century, until the World War I, the policy of the first and major news agencies of Europe, Havas, Wolff’s, and Reuters was to maximize their profits by signing contracts with governments.