Summary

The journalism industry has used technology and cooperation to convey information around the world since the mid-1800s when six American newspapers aligned to form the Associated Press. The nonprofit news agency was a business collaboration that allowed members to share content with one another. Cooperation in journalism was not always compatible with the industry’s traditional business model, however, which valued exclusivity. As technology progressed, cooperation grew ever easier and more productive. The ultimate emergence of the internet has consummated this trend, facilitating collaborations among groups of reporters across the globe. These collaborations allow individual groups to retain and capitalize upon their geographical exclusivity while enhancing their collective ability to provide domestic stories with a transnational context or to cover cross-border or even global issues.