Both the Financial Times and the New York Times have announced their international syndications will include additional countries. The FT has confirmed content sharing arrangements with publications based in Turkey, France, and South Korea. The NYT, meanwhile, has made agreements with a Bolivian national to carry its international weekly supplement.

The syndication deals will allow for the expansion of FT and NYT' content into the respective countries, hosted by national publications. The Turkish publication, the Ekonomist, a business and finance magazine will contain translations of up to four articles a week from the FT's The Banker. The Korean news magazine, Financial Week will host up to 20 FT articles a week, on FT branded paper. In Paris, the Courrier International, a weekly, internationally concerned news aggregation magazine has furthered its syndication plans with the FT. Under the new arrangement, the Courrier International can take online content from the FT.com to use on a recently launched, multilingual online venture that provides European-focused news and information.

"It is a privilege for us to include The New York Times international weekly in our pages," said Grover Yapura, editorial director of La Razón. "Our agreement will expand the information we offer, which today is dominated by local news coverage, and it bring us closer to the global stage with which readers are less familiar. This is a new step for La Razón to solidify its position as a leading news provider in our country."

The NYT has most recently made arrangements with Greek, Georgian and Romanian papers. Cristian Edwards, president of The New York Times News Services Division, said of the agreement, "we are honored to bring The New York Times to Bolivian readers through a publication that shares our commitment to quality journalism."

In the current financial climate, when most newspapers continue with reduced financial and staff resources, syndication is an interesting path for publishers to take. On the one hand, the inclusion of a foreign paper's content may be seen as an unessential extra and thus its dropping not a dramatic diminishment of a publication's content. However, as these recent developments may prove to emphasise, syndication with global networks of the FT and the NYT offers papers with smaller newsrooms the opportunity to "cover", albeit vicariously, international news stories or specialised features, without having to deploy their own staff. Syndication, therefore, can offer national publications cost-effective reporting services whilst boosting their prestige through explicit association with globally recognised news brands.

Sources: WorldofPrint
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