Pub. date: 2009 | Online Pub. Date: December 16, 2009 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412972048 | Print ISBN: 9780761929574 | Online ISBN: 9781412972048| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
Richard K. Popp
Press clipping services monitor media for content of interest to their clients. They scan through newspapers, magazines, and electronic media, select pertinent items, and then package (“clip”) them for easy perusal. The industry's name derives from the traditional practice of clipping items with a pair of scissors from the newspaper for safekeeping. Modern-day services track not only newspapers but nearly every print, broadcast, cable, and web-based information outlet, running the spectrum from network news broadcasts to teenagers' blogs. Clipping services have their origins in the expanding media environments of late-nineteenth-century cities. As the number of newspaper titles grew, editions multiplied, and issues expanded in length, a handful of entrepreneurs independently hit on the idea of a press monitoring service. Henry Romeike started the earliest clipping (or cutting) service in London in 1881 and quickly expanded its operations to New York, Paris, and Berlin. Romeike relocated to the United States in ...