The Foreign News Flow in the Information Age

Abstract

Moisy is undoubtedly correct in predicting The Foreign News Flow in the Information Age that news will increasingly be aimed at and consumed by an elite. This is a reflection of a wider change in this once-egalitarian nation. It has become polarized into elites and non-elites, a split that is not only skewing our income statistics but has even begun to replace the old left-right division in our politics. Issues like the North American Free Trade Agreement split the country into elites who welcomed free trade and non-elites who feared it. Thus, you saw odd-couple coalitions, such as populists Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader on one side, and internationalists like Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich on the other.

One fascinating thread that runs through Moisy’s analysis is the success of Reuters, the British-based news agency (known to Moisy and his fellows at Agence France Presse by the internal code-name “Rosalie”), for which I once worked. Its prosperity, even today, is based on an inspired philosophy propounded by its founder, Baron Julius Reuter, more than 150 years ago. “Follow the cable.” Reuter started with carrier pigeons, but quickly realized that he could make his fortune by keeping up with the latest technology, at that time, the telegraph wire. Wherever the cable went, Reuters would go too. The “cable” has now become digital computing, interactive networks, homeshopping, real-time video and the like. Reuters is still there, gathering, distributing and filtering the news. By the way, the best and most satisfying way to read it is in black and white, on newsprint.