London, February 28 (HNA) – The book, Hermes – News And News Agency Journalism: From Hermes, The Messenger Of The Gods, To The Social Media, by Osman Senkul, describes the birth and development of modern journalism and news agencies.
“I would like to point out that the principles and the styles you will read and learn about in and practice via this book come from the constitutions of AFP, AP and Reuters, developed and implemented and updated in the light of developments, since the beginning of the 20th century and from my own journalism experience of 35 years, 16 years of which with Reuters,” said Senkul.
“We will focus on the main criteria of news and agency journalism as a whole in this book. News should have the characteristics of Accuracy, Objectivity, Righteousness, Newness, Novelty, Momentousness, Clarity, Responsibility, Incredulity, 5W1H&SoWhat” he added.
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Mercury, who was considered the son of Jupiter in Roman religion, where his name was given to the planet lost close to the Sun, is commonly identified with Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods.
The sum and the substance of it, Hermes, as a messenger (journalist), is a person of many areas; because, even in the ancient era, the social groups that developed these mythological stories, primarily reflected their need for news in these stories and on top of that, they associated some superiorities, primarily accuracy and speed, to the messenger.
Journalism, imputed to the gods in the ancient era, went deep inside the cells of the society, from the top to the bottom, towards today; over the social division of labour, differentiation, complexification, development of the economic organization and accelerated progress of technology.
Today, the survival of journalism, which is being swept away by social media, as one of the main products of digital technology, became dependent on the protection of us, the journalists. Undoubtedly, the quickest and result-oriented way of protecting journalism is doing journalism by respecting the news itself.
The need for the news agencies erupted in the early 19th century when the news coverage of the newspapers expanded from local scale to national and international, over an increasingly rising number of newspapers published specifically in Europe and North America and the circulation evolved from local to regional, from regional to international.
News coverage of goings-on of a city or its suburbs was no longer satisfying for the newspaper readers; as well as the city or the country they live in, they were getting more curious about the neighbour countries or even about the goings-on at the other side of the world.
The surge of the migration from Europe to continental America, ongoing wars and clashes around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia, and gradually globalizing economic relations were the locomotives of this development. However, the invention of the telegram and the installation of wide networks of telegram throughout Europe and North America, known as the centres of news, were the main accelerators of the establishment and rapid development of news agencies.
https://www.amazon.com.tr/HERMES-AGENCY-JOURNALISM-Hermes-Messenger/dp/1073522075