The Central News Agency was a news distribution service founded as Central Press in 1863 by William Saunders and his brother-in-law, Edward Spender. In 1870–71, it adopted the name Central News Agency.
By undercutting its competitors, the Press Association and Reuters, and by distributing sensational and imaginative stories, it developed a reputation amongst newsmen for "underhand practices and stories of dubious veracity".[1] In 1895, The Times directly accused the Central News Agency of embellishing its reports, and published a comparison between the original telegrams received by the agency and those that were distributed by it. A 200-word dispatch about a naval battle in the Far East had been expanded with details of the battle though hardly any information was given in the original.[2] The agency confirmed that words had been added, and The Times declared that: "More than two-thirds of the message was, therefore, admittedly manufactured in London."[2]
One of its sensational and probably invented stories involved the so-called "Dear Boss" letter, dated 25 September 1888, in which a figure calling himself "Jack the Ripper" claimed responsibility for the Whitechapel murders. Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and a later postcard called the "Saucy Jacky" postcard, also supposedly written by the killer.[3] The journalist was named as "Tom Bullen" in a letter from one of the investigating inspectors to another journalist.[4] "Tom Bullen" was almost certainly Thomas John Bulling, who worked for Central News and claimed to have received a third letter from the Ripper in a message to police in October 1888.[5] "Jack the Ripper" was adopted as a name to refer to the murderer, and the international media frenzy, partly fed by Central News, bestowed enduring notoriety on the killer.