Abstract
The advent of telegraphy in the United States shifted newsgathering from the public postal system to a private network dominated by telegraph companies and wire services, a nearly simultaneous revolution in journalism’s technology and political economy. Postal newsgathering had been open to all newspapers with few costs and constraints, while its telegraphic successor developed amid a web of regulations. A changing configuration of occupational rules, private business arrangements, and public laws regulated each stage in the production of telegraphic news, from source–reporter interactions to post-publication liability. This monograph analyzes the origins of rules that governed timely news—determining who got it, how fast, and on what terms—from the advent of telecommunication to the eclipse of telegraphic news relays.
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