FOR INTERNATIONAL NEWS

This study aims to determine the extent to which the Indian English newspapers rely on transnational news agencies like Reuters and A.P. for foreign news. It does so through a quantitative content analysis wherein the international news stories published in the three most widely read Indian English dailies are compared with the associated Reuters and A.P. content during the month of July, 2011. This was done to detect the verbatim usage of the agency copy in the papers ’ news reports. The results of the analysis demonstrate that a large number of world stories published in the three newspapers are near complete replications of the agency wire copy (although the levels of publications’ dependence on the news agencies vary) This has the possible ramification of changing the Indian concept of journalism. It might also lead to a lack of information diversity. The importation of large volume of foreign news stories also suggests that these few major transnational news agencies are assuming the role of agenda-setters in global news. This study should be viewed in the larger context of the media imperialism theory as its findings indicate,taking the Indian English newspapers ’ foreign news coverage, as a case in point that the dominant-dependent relationship between the developed Western countries (where these news agencies are based) and a developing country like India continue