From the Big Three to elite news sources: a shift in international news flow in three online newspapers TheNational.ae, Nst.com.my, and Nzherald.co.nz

The rise of international news agencies in the nineteenth century advanced the globalisation process, as news was one of the first media products to be commodified for international trade. The demand for international news provided opportunities for news agencies to become wholesalers of news; this function was dominated by a handful of transnational news agencies such as the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and Agence France-Presse (AFP). As studies have shown that, in some countries, newspapers are relying more on diverse sources for world news coverage, this research examines whether and how the Big Three news agencies still dominate international news coverage in three online newspapers from the United Arab Emirates (TheNational.ae), Malaysia (Nst.com.my), and New Zealand (Nzherald.co.nz). It further investigates how news frames and geographic proximity of news affect the use of different news courses. The findings show that the three newspapers do differ in their use of the Big Three news agencies in covering international news with Nst.com.my using news from the Big Three in significantly higher proportions than both National.ae and NZherald.co.nz. In addition, a higher proportion of news from elite sources was covered in thematic rather than in episodic news frames. When covering regional news, the newspapers rely more on their own staff to provide more relevant content to their audience than using wholesaled news content from international news agencies.