Bulgarian News Agency

The Bulgarian News Agency (Bulgarian: Българска телеграфна агенция "Bulgarian Telegraph Agency"; abbreviated БТА, BTA) is the national news agency of Bulgaria.

History and profile

The BTA was founded in 1898 through a decree of Knyaz Ferdinand of Bulgaria during the government of Konstantin Stoilov.

It is the main source of information for the Bulgarian media and the country's governmental institutions. The agency's latest statute, regulating its activity, was adopted in 1994. The agency is a member of the European Alliance of News Agencies and of the Black Sea Association of National News Agencies. In addition, it is the founding member of the Balkan News Agencies.

The BTA issues Daily News, the only English-language Bulgarian daily, as well as the weekly Bulgarian Economic Outlook, also in English. In Bulgarian, the agency issues the established weekly magazine Paraleli, the monthly culture-related magazine LIK, and 100%.

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External links

News agency

A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.

There are many news agencies around the world, but there are global news agencies with offices in most countries of the world and cover all areas of information: Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters. All three began with and continue to operate on a basic philosophy of providing a single objective news feed to all subscribers; they do not provide separate feeds for conservative or liberal newspapers. Jonathan Fenby explains the philosophy:

History

Only a few large newspapers could afford bureaus outside their home city. They relied instead on news agencies, especially Havas in France and the Associated Press in the United States. Former Havas employees founded Reuters in Britain and Wolff in Germany; Havas is now Agence France-Presse (AFP). For international news, the agencies pooled their resources, so that Havas, for example, covered the French Empire, South America and the Balkans and shared the news with the other national agencies. In France the typical contract with Havas provided a provincial newspaper with 1800 lines of telegraphed text daily, for an annual subscription rate of 10,000 francs. Other agencies provided features and fiction for their subscribers.

Alternative news agency

An alternative news agency (or alternative news service) operates in a similar fashion to a commercial news agency, but defines itself as an alternative to commercial or "mainstream" operations. They span the political spectrum, but most frequently are progressive or radical left. Sometimes they combine the services of a news agency and a news syndicate. Among the primary clients are alternative weekly newspapers.

Examples

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