News Goes Global: Telegraph Cables and Wire Services

Before the telegraph, news could travel no faster than a ship or a horse, so word of events took weeks to cross oceans. Electric telegraphs and undersea cables changed this: a transatlantic cable worked briefly in 1858, and a durable link opened in 1866, followed by cables to India and Australia by the early 1870s. News agencies such as the Associated Press (1846) and Reuters (1851) gathered reports and sold them to newspapers, so readers around the world often read the same stories.

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa became one of the first natural disasters followed worldwide almost as it happened. Historians note that cables also served empire, as Britain controlled much of the network and could shape what news travelled. The telegraph created the first global news audience and raised early questions about who controls information.