"In the present work, the various aspects of news supply are studied from different angles. Chapter I outlines the history of agencies and of the agreements between the world agencies. It also includes a chronological list of agencies of all countries, which shows the extent to which national agencies have sprung up since 1920. The legal system governing agency operation and the problem of the ownership of news are studied in Chapter II. Chapter III contains reports, as accurate as possible, on the various telegraphic agencies which gather and distribute news in all parts of the world. Chapters IV and V study the relationship between telecommunications and telegraphic news agencies. The development of telecommunications at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century decisively influenced the growth of news agencies; it is therefore necessary to trace the history of telecommunications, to mention the various international agreements governing them, and to refer to their international organization, in so far as these matters affected the news agencies. Chapter VI is devoted to an examination of the use made of news by broadcasting stations and their relations with news agencies. Lastly, Chapter VII studies the most important question of all-how the general public in each country gets its news." (Introduction, page 10)

"This book gives information about the activities of the world-wide agencies in Asia and about the history, status, budgets, contributors, offices, correspondents, services, exchange agreements and technical equipment of the press agencies in the 14 developing countries of Asia (Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Formosa, Hong-Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam." (Jean-Marie Van Bol, Abdelfattah Fakhfakh: The use of mass media in the developing countries. Brussels: CIDESA, 1971 Nr. 1605, topic code 130)