A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. News agencies are known for their press releases. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.
Reuters, Bonn 1988
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.
A girl holding The Washington Post newspaper about the first Moon landing – Apollo 11, July 21, 1969
Woodcut by Tommaso Garzoni depicting a town crier with a trumpet
Reproduction of Kaiyuan Za Bao court newspaper from the Tang dynasty
Some European postal routes in 1563