press pools
The term press pools is a reference to journalists working as a group, rather than in the traditional mode of competing with one another as reporters and employees of a particular news outlet. This occurs when a professional agency enlists journalists from several news organizations to share reporting content or location advantage. Reporters in the pool are expected to supply detailed notes and to file reports that are shared freely with all members of the pool who may not have been selected for inclusion at the event for coverage.
Press pools are sometimes the result of a government declaration in order to organize reporters and their newsgathering at a particular event or location. Press pools are also commonly used by public figures or large organizations such as international companies or leagues to efficiently distribute information. The term is often replaced now with the more inclusive media pools which accounts for the shift in news formats from paper-based print to audio and image content across digital platforms.
This entry describes the evolution of press pools and discusses the effects that pooling has had on news content and public opinion. The entry begins by discussing the reports sent home during the Roman Empire in western Europe before focusing on pooling practices of the U.S. news media in the 19th century and beyond.
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
Early Pooling of Reports
News reports in a written form that circulated, or were posted for public consumption, date to at least the first century bce. The Acta Diurna (Daily Events) reported significant events around the Roman Empire and provided a record or announcement of births, deaths, and marriages. The publication was a collection of news reports sent from the provinces as well as official notifications from government and was considered required reading for Roman citizens. The efficiency of collecting news into a single fixed issue and distributing or posting it for mass consumption was not lost on the citizenship of such a vast empire. Individuals recounted in letters and other kinds of records that they read specific reports in the Acta Diurna and relied on the contents for knowledge about their shared world.
With the development of a mechanized printing press, collected news was distributed in ever wider regions and the reports were gathered from many sources. Pooling of content was often through a post office or general publisher who had access to correspondents who were far-flung and well-informed. As regularly published newspapers became a part of advancing societies, the reporters were more organized and identifiable to establish authoritative content. There was the use of nom de plume when a reporter was concerned about retribution for news content, but many reports identified sources for information so that readers at least understood whether to believe the story.
Printing Press Era Pooling
Once newspapers became regularly issued and published by established news organizations, reporters supplied content that suited the publishers and subscribers interests. As a selling point for subscriptions, reporters were urged to provide the most current and reliable reports. The need for a constant flow of news reports spurred entrepreneurs to employ journalists and create newsgathering organizations such as the Associated Press, Reuters, and United Press International that collected news and supplied publishers with content. The development of the telegraph aided in news collection and distribution speed over long distances.
Press pooling that is, selected journalists providing reports for an entire group of reporters who were working for several news organizations took several forms. Press conferences, for example, where a source of information a public official, entertainer, or social personality delivered at once the subject of a report to many journalists without giving interviews to individual reporters. This is one means of pooling the journalists and conserving the effort of relaying information. Press conferences were held, sometimes lavishly and with much anticipation, by government officials, the Hollywood entertainment industry, and anyone else with a public following in the days before social media. Another use of press pooling was developed by the news organizations that wanted access, equally and efficiently, to regular news sources. These pools are sometimes referred to as the press corps and are found in environments where news events and sources are habitually providing content. Reporters assigned to particular officials or agencies even had offices or locations dedicated for their reporting activities.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
These pooling structures benefited the news sources because they limited the time necessary to interact with journalists. The pooling also benefited the journalists because everyone got the same information at the same time, requiring less time for each reporter to gather particular facts or statements. Journalists were free, then, to spend more time working on other aspects of their reports, such as gathering information outside the pool resources, or writing their stories. This pooling structure can lead to what is referred to as pack journalism, when reporting practiced by reporters in a group becomes uniform. Sources of news have also learned to use press pooling to their advantage. Pooled reporters could be uniformly misled with false reports or misdirected by information that was provided without substantiation. The timing of reports could also be managed by sources who wanted to delay information or advance speculation to benefit a particular stance or point of view.
Government Restrictions on Reporting
During times of social conflict, particularly wars and civil unrest, governments learned to manage journalists with varying degrees of success. Notably, in the United States, the federal government organized press pools for reporters covering offshore wars in a variety of ways. These efforts included limiting journalists access to military activities, formally pooling with credentials and dedicated work areas, to embedding reporters with specific military units or offices.
In the early years of the 20th century into the late 1960s and the Vietnam War, U.S. journalists who were reporting on wars from the frontlines were encouraged to be good citizens about the details and timing of what they relayed about military activity. Censorship was imposed by government agents as reports were intercepted and taken from messengers or deleted from field reports. And there were self-imposed rules applied by news organizations that feared that laws would be enacted to curtail freedom of the press if editors did a poor job of screening news content.
During the latter part of the century, the improvements in media reporting and communication equipment substantially shortened the timeframe for filing and distributing reports. The Vietnam War was reported so quickly by journalists at the front to the U.S. nightly news broadcasts that the reporters and editors hardly had time to think about the implications of their stories. The military, in response to so little filtering of the news, formalized the reporter credentialing process and imposed broad restrictions on what could be reported from war zones, beginning with U.S. interventions in Central America, Africa, and the Middle East in the 1980s. The restrictions ranged from a 1983 complete ban of media during the U.S. military intervention in Grenada and a 1986 shutdown of media reporting on the military operation in Libya. Following an internal report by Ret. General Winant Sidle, press pools were organized by the U.S. military for 1989 operations in Panama, 1990 in the Persian Gulf, and in the 1992 Somalia deployments. Later, the 1993 peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the 1994 Haiti intervention both proved more difficult to enforce pooling strategies because the military activities were not as formal.
News organizations loudly decried the confinement of reporters away from the battlefields. Coast to coast, opinion writers posted scathing editorials, and reporters protested during press conferences with military officials when the news blackout occurred during the landing in Grenada and again in Libya. After the recommendations contained in the Sidle Report (1984) became known beyond the Pentagon, embedding of reporters was adopted by the U.S. military as a way of controlling the news sent home from the Persian Gulf operations. Embedding also reduced the antagonism of the news organizations. In this new press pooling template, reporters were allowed access to offshore operations but were restricted to their specifically assigned military units. They were also instructed, with guidelines from the military, that providing any detail about troop movement, size, or activity might inform the opposing side in the conflict. Reporters were required to agree to, and abide by, the guidelines or they would be denied credentials that allowed them to report from the locations of military activity.
These restrictions of press pools had a deep effect on the kinds of news that was distributed in the United States, and research suggests it has also affected public opinion about military conflicts. For example, during the 1982 U.S. Marines deployment to Lebanon, before media pooling was in effect, only 35% of respondents to a public opinion poll said it was the right thing to do. But the next year, after the 1983 Grenada invasion and reporter blackout, 69% of poll respondents said it was the right thing to do.
Modern Press Pools
As communication technology evolved in the 21st century, the need for credentialed journalists on the scene of specific events has diminished. Reporters with varying skills are more often available as freelancers for news organizations to hire on the spur of the moment. News organizations have blended staff reports across communication platforms, so that fewer reporters are required at any given location or for specialized events.
News reports can be filed seamlessly using digital equipment and Internet connections, so that anyone with a portable computer or smartphone can transmit news anywhere that satellites serve. News consumers are also less reliant on a few news sources and can instead browse the World Wide Web for information at will. These factors worldwide digital communication, and the ubiquity of search tools have reduced the efficiency and usefulness of press pools as a means of controlling information gathering, limiting or broadening information distribution, and affecting news media content.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.