Louis P. Rocker, president of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, announced the opening today of the first facsimile circuit in the United States designed for the transmission of news copy.
The new circuit links the New York headquarters of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency with the editorial offices of the Jewish Daily Forward and The Day-Morning Journal. It permits almost instantaneous reception of the JTA news service specially prepared and translated into Yiddish for the Jewish press. When necessary, copy can also be transmitted over the same circuit in English or any other language.
With the establishment of this circuit, the Jewish dailies can now receive, in Yiddish, news stories from overseas and other points within a few moments of the receipt by JTA in New York of the new cable. The JTA has a special Yiddish-language department serving the Jewish press 14 hours daily.
Use of facsimile for news transmission was originally pioneered by a Japanese news agency which was faced with the same technical problems as JTA in local delivery of news. The equipment used on the JTA circuit was engineered by Western Union.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
