REUTERS, PROPAGANDA-INSPIRED NEWS, AND THE AUSTRALIAN PRESS DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

This paper examines the role of the London-based international news agency, Reuters, in transmitting propaganda-inspired news to Australia during the First World War as well as the take-up of such news by the Australian press. It explores how the propaganda function was understood within Reuters and how this function changed during the course of the war. It focuses on Reuters' establishment, in March 1917, of a special British Empire 'supplementary news service designed to unite the Empire behind the war effort. The paper explains Reuters' success in Australia which arose, in large part, from its partnership with the United Cable Service, an Australian agency managed by Keith Murdoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]