section_path: Social organization of news production/Relationship with institutions
section_name: Relationship with institutions
paragraph_text: Relationship with institutions
  
  For various reasons, news media usually have a close relationship with the state, and often church as well, even when they cast themselves in critical roles. This relationship seems to emerge because the press can develop symbiotic relationships with other powerful social institutions. In the United States, the Associated Press wire service developed a "bilateral monopoly" with the Western Union telegraph company.
  
  The news agencies which rose to power in the mid-1800s all had support from their respective governments, and in turn served their political interests to some degree. News for consumption has operated under statist assumptions, even when it takes a stance adversarial to some aspect of a government. In practice, a large proportion of routine news production involves interactions between reporters and government officials. Relatedly, journalists tend to adopt a hierarchical view of society, according to which a few people at the top of organizational pyramids are best situated to comment on the reality which serves as the basisi of news. Broadly speaking, therefore, news tends to normalize and reflect the interests of the power structure dominant in its social context.
  
  Today, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rival and may surpass governments in their influence on the content of news.