April 27, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
The new arrangements for the transmission of telegraphic news throughout the Confederacy are now, we suppose, in full operation, and we have a fair opportunity of estimating the advantages that have resulted from the change. To our mind, those advantages, so far, are of a very questionable character. The agents of the Association have, it is true, been multiplied, and so have the charges of the Association against the several newspapers; but so far from any corresponding improvement having taken place in the practical working of the system, it seems to us that the press telegraphic arrangements were never in a worse plight than now. In the telegrams from Richmond, there is no perceptible difference, either as to quality or quantity, from those formerly received; but we cannot say as much for the despatches from the newly established agencies in the West. Every day the wires bring us a budget of […..] from that quarter, generally unintelligible and invariably devoid of interest. Indeed, so sorely has our patience been tried in this respect, that we have learned to spare our readers the infliction of the senseless jargon of Western war reports so industriously telegraphed to this city. But we seldom escape with the perusal of a single worthless despatch. It not unfrequently happens that we receive from different agencies, two or more accounts, all equally vague, and all designed to convey information of the same highly uninteresting rumor or event. We beg the active superintendent of the Associated Press to note this pleasant state of affairs, and, if he cannot dissuade his Western agents from sending so comprehensive a batch of the rumors and speculations of their respective neighborhoods, at least to require them, in preparing their despatches, to adopt a style less spasmodic and perplexing.