AA celebrates 92nd anniversary

ANKARA

Anadolu Agency Board Chairman and Director General Kemal Ozturk was revealing AA's "centennial vision" in a meeting in Ankara.

Ozturk announced details of a project aimed at making AA one of the leading news agencies in the world."We have change our corporate logo to start with to change our perceptions," Ozturk told the ceremony. 

Ozturk said the AA targeted broadcasts in 11 languages, seven thousand subscribers, an annual revenue of 130 million TL, four thousand news items, 2500 photographs, 400 video footage and 15 graphics per day.

We have to be the strong news agency of strong Turkey

Kemal Ozturk has said that AA had to be the strong news agency of strong Turkey.

We have to be an influential institution in the world; that's how Anadolu Agency centennial vision was born, said Ozturk while announcing "Centennial Vision" as part of a project to make the agency be one of the top five news agencies in the world by 2020, the date AA will celebrate its 100th anniversary.Ozturk said that AA, which was established in 1920, was one of the most rooted news agencies of the world today, while celebrating its 92nd year.

Unfortunately, we are not as much influential as our peer news agencies in the world, said Ozturk, adding that AA was producing 600 news, 600 photos and 120 videos with its 584 personnel everyday.

Ozturk said that 1,121 subscribers across Turkey were sharing nearly 500 news stories of AA each day, adding, "unfortunately only one over five of the news was broadcast with AA logo on itself. When our colleagues acted more carefully, you will see our logo more on newspapers and televisions."

"AA is the only press institution which issues correction in any mistake in its news stories, because, our news are used as archive in the state and evidence in the courts," added Ozturk.
Ozturk said that they started Centennial Vision by changing AA's logo, adding that new web-site of AA was also initiated today. He noted that in language selection part of AA's web-site, people could see Bosniac, Arabic, English and Turkish.

AA to provide news services in 11 languages by 2015, says Executive Board Chairman Ozturk

Chairman of the Executive Board and Director General of Anadolu Agency (AA) Kemal Ozturk said Monday that the agency planned to provide news services in 11 languages by the year 2015.

Speaking at an event held in Ankara's Rixos Hotel to introduce AA's centennial vision, Ozturk said that the AA would begin Arabic edition services as of May, 2012.
We will provide Russian edition services from our office in Baku, Kurdish edition services would begin in 2012, Bosnian edition services already began publication in March, Ozturk noted.
Turkey needs to train war correspondents based on its geographical position, Ozturk said.
Five AA correspondents were recently sent to London to get trained as 'war correspondents'. We have since decided to train our own war correspondents. Turkey's Police Academy, General Staff and the AA will sign a protocol soon for the training of war correspondents. We will begin training war correspondents for the Middle East, Balkans and the Caucasus, Ozturk stressed.
Touching on the AA's strategic goals, Ozturk said that they wanted to increase the number of subscribers to 7,000 by 2020, The AA currently has 1,121 subscribers.
We plan to have an income of 130 million Turkish liras by 2020, Ozturk underlined.
We plan to offer 4,000 news on a daily basis. We presently provide 600 photographs per day and we want to increase this figure to 2,501, Ozturk said.
We aim to increase the number of regional offices in Turkey to 18 from 13 and the number of foreign offices to 80 from 39 in the next eight years, Ozturk stated.
We do plan to provide news services in 11 languages. This is a great goal which we can realize in the fastest way possible, Ozturk indicated.
The AA will be among the top 10 news agencies of the world with its financial news. The government of Libya has asked us to train their correspondents. The Egyptian government wants us to help them update their national agency, Ozturk said.
Our subscribers can utilize the AA archives and study the past 90 years, Ozturk stressed.
AA's income increased 45 percent in the past seven months. New subscribers, new business fields and new products contributed to the increase in our income, Ozturk said.
New media fields such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, YouTube and Vimeo all carry the photographs and videos of the AA. We continue to provide Ipad and Iphone services with our new logo, Ozturk said.
During Monday's introduction meeting at Rixos Hotel, live connections were made with AA correspondents in all corners of the world.
At the end of the ceremony, singer Eda Karaytug sang songs in Bosnian, Azerbaijani, Arabic and Turkish languages.