The United States Department of Commerce National Technical Information Service compiled and distributed it from non-U.S. media sources,[1] usually within 24–72 hours from the time of the original publication or broadcast.
It provided the full text of newspaper articles, television and radio broadcasts, online sources, conference proceedings, periodicals, and non-classified technical reports.
This information was collected and translated to aid decision makers at the highest levels of the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government who needed to know what was happening abroad and how it was being reported locally.
[2] World News Connection was the online offering from the Open Source Center (OSC) (formerly the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)) that replaced the hard-copy regionally oriented "pink books" that used to be published.
WNC material was also available from Acquire Media, Country Watch, East View Information Services, NISC Pty Ltd (South Africa), and Westlaw.