Pedro AguiarPhD candidate

Rio de Janeiro State Universitytutor: Sonia Virginia Moreira, PhD

The Hugenberg Modelmedia conglomerates and Brazilian news agencies

abstractThis paper inquiries the origin of the model of media conglomerate news agencies, inducted in Brazil after the prototype of Agência Meridional, part of the Diários Associados group, owned by Assis Chateaubriand, on its own shaped after Telegraphen-Union of the Alfred Hugenberg's trust, in 1920s Germany. Through a comparative perspective with what is described in scholar literature about North American conglomerate news agencies and their services of news syndication for other newspapers, we identify the legacy of such model in current Brazilian news agencies - Agência Estado, Agência O Globo, and Folhapress – and propose an economical taxonomy for the different kinds of conglomerate agencies, particularly the intraconglomerate, which operate within a concentrating and converging framework, begetting a circularity system which enhances dependency and regional assymetries in the domestic flow of news.

objectives and references1) historical perspective

history of news agencies industry and market in Europe, North America and Brazil

genesis of media conglomerates and their corporate strategies

2) administrative genealogyhow one practice in 1920s Germany became determinant

for the exceptional model of the news agencies industry in Brazil

3) economical taxonomyproposal of new categories and subcategories of news

agencies

4) reference authors

Boyd-Barrett (1980), Shrivastava (2007), Czarniawska (2011)

Basse (1991), Fulda (2008), Tworek (2010, 2013)Morais (1994), Bahia (2009), Marques (2005), Gonçalves

(2010)

ownership of news agencies1) state-owned

AFP (France), EFE (Spain), Xinhua (China), TASS (Russia)

2) NGOs and non-profit organizationsInterPress Service (Italy)

3) private corporations

1) single-purpose companyReuters (UK)

2) cooperativesAssociated Press (USA), DPA (Germany), ANSA (Italy),

PA (UK)

3) part of conglomerates

media landscape in late Victorian era

(or Belle Époque, or fin-de-siécle, circa 1870-1914)

news agenciesHavas (1832)Reuters (1851)Wolff (1848)Associated Press (1846)

media moguls & early conglomeratesPulitzerScrippsHearstBeaverbrookNorthcliffeUllsteinMosseHirsch

}European cartel agreements (1859-1927)

HugenbergAlfred Ernst Christian Alexander

Hugenberg

(1865-1951)Hannover, Germany

main media mogul in Interbellum Germany

originally corporate executive in Krupp steel

industries

Hugenberg-Konzernacquired TU - Telegraphen-Union

(1916), Die Woche, Die Gartenlaube, Berliner Lokal Anzeiger, UFA newsreels, Scherl Verlag publishing, among others

major supporter of the Nazi Party

Hugenbergfounding member of SDÜ (Syndikat

Deutscher Überseedienst, or German Overseas Syndication Service), in 1913, a pre-war corporate syndicate aimed at circulating news exclusively among non-press clients (intercorporate circulation)

modeled his Telegraphen-Union news agency on this idea of intercorporate circulation

ChateaubriandFrancisco de Assis Chateaubriand

Bandeira de Mello

(1892-1968)Paraíba, Brazil

first media mogul in Brazil

originally barrister and newsroom journalist

Diários Associadosacquired O Jornal (1924), O Estado

de Minas, Jornal do Commercio (RJ), Diário de Pernambuco, and founded Meridional agency, O Cruzeiro magazine, Correio Braziliense, Rádio Tupi and TV Tupi, among others

ChateaubriandGermanophile, Brazilian correspondent

in Germany in 1920-1921

professional and personal connections with the German elite and press people during the Weimar Republic

created Agência Meridional (1931) to save costs by reproducing the same content in several outlets of his own conglomerate

conglomerate news agenciesUnited Press (Scripps group)

1907

International News Service (Hearst group)1909

Telegraphen-Union1913 (purchased in 1916 by Hugenberg)

Meridional (Diários Associados – Chateaubriand group)1931

}merged as UPI (1958)

conglomerate news agenciesthe American model• formed to counter the exclusivity clause of the Associated

Press• circulation from their own conglomerate to independent

newspapers and outlets (or clients in other groups)• syndicating to clients outside the conglomerate• cross-media service (from print to radio and newsreels)• network foreign correspondents

the Hugenberg model• internal circulation among newspapers and outlets of its

own conglomerate• no syndication to clients outside the conglomerate• cross-media service (basically print to radio)• lack of foreign correspondents

news agencies industry in Brazil

news agencies industry in Brazilagency headquarters established ownership ABN Brasília 1924 Cásper Líbero

DA Press (formerly Meridional)

Brasília 1931 Diários Associados

Agência Brasil, ABr (formerly Ag. Nacional)

Brasília 1937 EBC/ federal government

Lance!Press (formerly SportPress)

Rio de Janeiro 1955 José Dias/Walter de Mattos Jr.

Agência JB Rio de Janeiro 1966 CBM (Nelson Tanure)

Transpress n/d 1960s Pires Ferreira

Agência Estado São Paulo 1970 Grupo OESP/Estadão

Agência O Globo Rio de Janeiro 1974 Organizações Globo

Folhapress São Paulo 1994 Grupo Folha

news agencies industry in Brazilgenerally speaking, major Brazilian news agencies (ABr

excepted):

1) belong to private media conglomerates;2) do not produce original content;3) provide domestic news to domestic clients (ignoring world

news);4) operate as resellers/syndication of content originally

produced by flagship newspapers, by extracting a limited selection from the daily amount of news (features, columns, non-prioritary, or rejected);

5) put greater emphasis on photo rather than text;6) are used as a strategy to maximize revenue without

expanding content production;7) are aimed at news markets (especially print) in medium- or

small-sized towns or on the countryside;8) provide news to outlets owned by other, smaller, regional

conglomerates (thus intraconglomerates)

critical analysisthis model of news agencies industry:

1) is sui generis among major countries in the world;

2) enhances media concentration and assymetric relations between major conglomerates and regional groups;

3) creates dependency between regional media and metropolitan media comglomerates;

4) reinforces local power through local media;

5) is akin to what Boyd-Barrett (1980) describes as “supplemental news agencies”, which include news syndication services.

critical analysisin the words of Henrique Caban, former head of Agência O

Globo:

“Brazilians newspapers don’t have nor never had news agencies, but merely news sellers to town papers”

“They sell what I call ‘trash’: that which the newspaper already produced and is stored; they compact and broadcast at night to smaller newspapers, so these can fill their sections for national news, sports, etc.”

conglomerate news agencies - a taxonomy

1) extraconglomerate news agenciesUP (Scripps)INS (Hearst)UPI (Scripps+Hearst)

2) intraconglomerate news agenciesTU (Hugenberg)Meridional (Chateaubriand)

3) interconglomerate news agenciesAgência Estado (OESP)Folhapress (Folha)AOG (Globo)AJB (Jornal do Brasil)ARBS (RBS)AODia (O Dia)

contact

pedroaguiar@ufrj.br+55 21 999240551

@pedreco

Rio de Janeiro, May 2014