I have often reported to you on the work of TIME correspondents from Rangoon to Boston. This week I would like to show you on the accompanying map how they are spotted in the world's news centers. Twenty-seven news bureaus, all but three of them (Singapore, Beirut, Panama) permanent offices, are the bases from which 69 TIME correspondents range out to cover the most important stories. These correspondents supply the bulk of the material for any issue. Branching from this staff, sometimes reporting to it but more often reporting directly to the editors, is a network of 225 string correspondents (119 in the U.S.). They are mostly top journalists on local papers, and they keep the editors posted on events likely to make TIME stories, furnish the background necessary to evaluate spot news.

These 294 men and women file some 200,000 words (about equal to two copies of the Iliad) a week to New York, more than half of it by TIME'S own teletype network. They also supply some 30,000 less urgent words a week by air mail reports, and select and mail uncounted other documents.

In addition to reports from its own correspondents, TIME gets seven-day-a-week newspaper teletype service from the Associated Press and the United Press. The press services also handle special queries when they have a man closer to a particular story. Through these two great organizations the work of 3,431 staff correspondents and 32,400 stringers is available to TIME writers. (On this map a circle means that A.P. or U.P., often both have a bureau in the city indicated.) In addition to supplying added facts for many stories A.P. and U.P. are a sort of fire-warning net which, geared to newspaper and radio staffs around the world, spots fast-breaking news. In any one week only a small percentage of these men work for TIME, but without their help the magazine's coverage would not be what it is.

Any counting of correspondents tells only part of the story of information flowing into TIME. For instance the staff here requires some 6,350 copies of 120 U.S. and 30 foreign newspapers a week and 708 copies of 425 periodicals, from Metronome to The Christian Century. Another information channel: the 31 picture agencies (e.g., A.P., Acme, I.N.P., Wide World) which supply some 4,700 pictures a week. And backing up all reports is TIME'S morgue-library, one of the world's greatest news files.

From such sources, along any cable not fully blocked by the Iron Curtain, flows the raw material for TIME. Out of this information (and their own backgrounds and skills) TIME'S 64 writers and editors build TIME afresh for you each week.

Cordially yours,

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