Exclusivity and Cooperation in the Supply of News: The Example of the Associated Press, 1893–1945

Exclusive sale and exchange agreements among news outlets reduce the cost each news outlet incurs in gathering the news and, simultaneously, increase the quantity of news available to each outlet. Such arrangements are common, but coordinating the exchange of exclusive news among a plethora of organizations is costly, which accounts for the propensity among publishers to integrate such exchange through the creation of associations. Associations for this purpose exist all over the world, many of which, although they operate in a variety of different ways, are modeled after the Associated Press.