Czech News Agency

The Czech News Agency (Czech: Česká tisková kancelář), abbreviated to ČTK, is a national public service news agency in the Czech Republic. It publishes in Czech, Slovak, and English.

Founded on 28 October 1918, on the same day as Czechoslovakia's formation, the company has been owned by the government and used by the various regimes in the Czech lands since then. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the government ceased interfering in editorial decisions. In 1993 the government religuished control of the agency, which has since been governed by a board of seven people elected by the lower house of Parliament. Members of the board are not allowed to be politically active. The agency's state subsidy was discontinued in 1996.

It was renamed from Czechoslovak to Czech News Agency on 1 January 1993 when Czechoslovakia split. CTK, however, stayed active in the Slovak market. Its former Slovak part is a separate company under a different set-up called TASR News Agency of the Slovak Republic.

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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Defunct