Press Association
Type | Press agency |
---|---|
Founded | 1868 (1868) in United Kingdom |
Headquarters | Vauxhall Bridge Road London, SW1 United Kingdom |
Number of locations | 7 (2018) |
Website | www.pressassociation.com/ |
The Press Association (PA) is a multimedia news agency operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
PA is part of PA Group Limited,[1] a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and regional newspaper publishers. The biggest shareholders include the Daily Mail and General Trust, News UK, and UBM. PA Group also encompasses Globelynx, which provides TV-ready remotely monitored camera systems for corporate clients to connect with TV news broadcasters in the UK and worldwide; TNR, a specialist communications consultancy; Sticky Content, the UK's leading digital copywriting and content strategy agency; and StreamAMG, a video streaming business.
PA, the news agency, delivers a continuous feed of content via a national newswire, including text, images, video and data into newsrooms around the country. This ranges from international sports data and entertainment guides, to TV listings and archived images.
The Group's photography arm, PA Images, has a portfolio comprising more than 20 million photographs online and around 10 million in physical archives dating back 150 years.[2]
PA’s customers are varied, consisting of non-media customers, business brands, commercial companies, government and not-for-profit organisations.[3]
Contents
1 History
2 News Agency
3 Other divisions and ventures
3.1 PA Training
3.2 TNR
3.3 Globelynx
3.4 Sticky Content
3.5 StreamAMG
3.6 RADAR
4 Key people
4.1 Board of directors
4.2 Shareholders
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
History
Founded in 1868 by a group of provincial newspaper proprietors, the PA provides a London-based service of news-collecting and reporting from around the United Kingdom.
The news agency's founders sought to produce a more accurate and reliable alternative to the monopoly service of the telegraph companies. A committee appointed to make arrangements for the formation of the organisation said: "The Press Association is formed on the principle of co-operation and can never be worked for individual profit, or become exclusive in its character".
In January 1870 the agency moved from temporary offices into new headquarters at Wine Office Court, off Fleet Street. At 5am on Saturday 5 February 1870, its first press telegram was transmitted.
The first PA lobby correspondent in 1874 and the first sports editor in 1883. The agency's first Editor-in-Chief was Arthur Cranfield, appointed in 1926.
In 1995, PA moved from Fleet Street to Vauxhall Bridge Road, enabling the company to rapidly expand its output particularly in the sports and new media divisions.
The Press Association launched the Ananova news website in 2000. Ananova was then sold to Orange, and in December 2013, PA Group sold its weather business MeteoGroup, Europe's largest private sector weather company, to global growth investment firm General Atlantic.[4]
In 2005, the company changed its name to PA Group to reflect its diverse and increasingly digital business activities.
In February 2015, PA announced the sale of its finance publications divisions, which included TelecomFinance and SatelliteFinance.[5]
A full history of the Press Association was written by Chris Moncrieff, CBE, the former Political Editor of the Press Association in 2001 called "Living on a Deadline."
News Agency
PA’s service supplies news, sport, entertainment and images stories, delivered in multi-format for various print and digital platforms. The editor-in-chief of the news agency is Pete Clifton, who was appointed[6] in October 2014.
PA provides a stream of content on wires, delivers packages for use online, or designs and delivers ready-to-publish pages for use in print. This media content now includes video and interactive graphics.
- News reporters file stories every day, from breaking news to show business and human interest stories.
- In sport, PA reports on the major events around the world including tennis, golf, rugby, horse racing and key football tournaments.
- PA's entertainment journalists gather celebrity coverage, star interviews and independent reviews.
- Award-winning[7] images from PA Images provide photographic content for the news, sport and entertainment genres from around the world. Images are multi-format and available for multiple platforms, e.g. tablet, smartphone.
In March 2015, PA launched a training bursary scheme[8] for Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) aspiring journalists to encourage a more ethnically and socially diverse newsroom. The scheme is in partnership with the Journalism Diversity Fund.
Around the Company's coverage of the UK General Election 2015, PA partnered with Google[9] to provide election data on all of the parliamentary candidates standing around the country; and joined forces with Facebook[10] to curate content from across the web for its UK Politics community page.
Other divisions and ventures
PA Training
PA Training is Europe's biggest journalism and media training company. It was formed in 2006, when the Press Association acquired Trinity Mirror's training centre in Newcastle upon Tyne. The NCTJ course in Newcastle has been around since 1969.
The business already owned the former Westminster Press-owned Editorial Centre and merged the two businesses to become PA Training, and has a proud history of training many of the UK's leading journalists.
It offers courses in magazine journalism, sports, news and features, and in 2013 PA Training acquired PMA Media Training; the magazine industry's leading training organisation.
In 2014, PA's journalism training centre in Newcastle was named by the NCTJ as the best in Britain.
In March 2015, PA Training created an online learning course so that journalists can learn about and test their knowledge of the Editors' Code of Practice. PA Training developed the course[11] to meet the requirements of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which adopted the code previously overseen by the Press Complaints Commission.
TNR
The specialist communications consultancy is part of the PA Group. Offering creative PR services from a journalistic perspective, it provides the ability to commission PA videographers, photographers, and offers media training by seasoned journalists.
Globelynx
Globelynx was founded in 2001 and is part of PA Group. Globelynx connects, via its managed fibre optic network, a growing list of corporate clients to TV news broadcasters in the UK and worldwide. It provides TVready remotely monitored, broadcast-quality purpose built camera systems.
Sticky Content
Sticky Content is a digital copywriting agency based in London, specialising in copy for brands. In October 2013, the PA Group acquired an 80% shareholding in the company, and they moved into the Vauxhall Bridge Road offices in November 2013. PA Group took full ownership of Sticky Content in 2015.
StreamAMG
StreamAMG (Advanced Media Group) provides European companies with global digital media solutions. PA Group acquired a 60% shareholding in the company in April 2017.
RADAR
PA was awarded a €706,000 grant from Google in July 2017 to fund a local news automation service in collaboration with Urbs Media.[12]
Key people
Board of directors
- Murdoch MacLennan (Chairman, PA Group; Deputy Chairman, Telegraph Media Group)
- Clive Marshall (Chief Executive, PA Group)
- Tony Watson (Managing Director, Press Association)
- Andrew Dowsett, (Chief Operating Officer, PA Group)
- Ed Ethelston (Chief Financial Officer, PA Group)
- Geraldine Allinson (Chairman, KM Group)
- Rebekah Brooks (Chief Executive, News UK)
- Dominic Fitzpatrick (Managing Director, The Irish News)
- Simon Fox (Chief Executive, Trinity Mirror)
Louise Irwin is the Company Secretary of the PA Group
PA Group has 26 shareholders, many of whom are national and regional newspaper groups. They include:
- Daily Mail and General Holdings Ltd
- News UK
- UBMG Ltd
- Trinity Mirror plc
- Guardian Media Group plc
- The Telegraph Media Group Ltd
- Johnston Press
- Archant Ltd
- DC Thomson & Co. Ltd
- the car magazine
See also
- EMPICS
- Media of the United Kingdom
- List of news agencies
References
^ Sweney, Mark; Ben Dowell (14 June 2012). "PA Group records 85% increase in profits and boosts chief executive's pay". The Guardian..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
^ "PA Images". paimages.co.uk. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
^ Burrell, Ian (28 February 2011). "Ian Burrell: Agency hatched in Victorian cab has evolved for 21st-century". The Independent.
^ Staff, Telegraph (16 December 2013). "PA sells weather business MeteoGroup for £160m". The Telegraph.
^ AAP (6 February 2015). "Press Assoc sells finance division". The Daily Telegraph.
^ Turvill, William (28 October 2014). "Former BBC News website editor Pete Clifton named new Press Association editor-in-chief ahead of Jonathan Grun departure". The Guardian.
^ Staff, Guardian (11 March 2015). "Press awards: Everyday Sexism founder wins Georgina Henry prize". The Guardian.
^ Lambourne, Helen (31 March 2015). "Press Association launches newsroom diversity bid". Hold The Front Page.
^ Linford, Paul (20 April 2015). "Press Association to provide election data feed to Google". Hold The Front Page.
^ Woods, Ben (31 March 2015). "Facebook partners with the Press Association for its curated Election 2015 content". The Next Web.
^ Greenslade, Roy (25 March 2015). "PA creates online course to teach journalists about the editors' code". The Guardian.
^ "RADAR press release". PA. PA. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
Further reading
- Silberstein-Loeb, Jonathan (2014). The International Distribution of News: The Associated Press, Press Association, and Reuters, 1848–1947.
- Moncrieff, Chris (2001). Living on a Deadline: A History of the Press Association
ISBN 1852279176
External links
- Official website