The Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATSH; ) is the official
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
news agency
A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency may ...
of the
Albanian government
Albania is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, where the President of Albania is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Albania the head of government in a multi-party system. The executive power is exercised by the Government a ...
. Its content is published in some of the main news agencies around the world of which it has contractual agreements with, such as:
AFP,
DPA,
ANSA
Ansa (Latin for "handle") or ANSA may refer to:
Organizations
* Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Italian news agency
** Ansa Mediterranean or ANSAmed, section of the above
* Applied Neuroscience Society of Australasia
* Association of Norw ...
,
Xinhua
Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...
,
Anadolu, etc. The agency is a member of the
European Alliance of News Agencies
The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) is a federation of news agencies in Europe. The organisation was founded in 1956 and is based in Bern at the seat of the Swiss Telegraphic Agency (sda). As of 2015, EANA has 32 members. EANA's predec ...
(EANA), the Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies (AMAN) and the Association of the Balkan News Agencies (ABNA).
History
The first Press Office in
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
opened in 1920 at the
Ministry of Internal Affairs
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
, while in 1927 it moved to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
. Documents from this time period uncovered at the
Central State Archive, show that the functions related to ATSH (as a news agency) were retained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On January 18, 1943, newspaper "Tomori", while compiling the biography of the Minister of Popular Culture, writes that
Mihal Sherko
Mihal Sherko (1887–1964) was an Albanian journalist, diplomat, educator and media pioneer, widely acknowledged as the founder of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency.
Biography
Sherko was born on October 27, 1887, in Korçë, a city in south-easte ...
created ATSH in 1927, within the Press Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1929, the office passed under the auspices of the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
and until 1939 it was interchangeably a structure of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, always with Mihal Sherko as its head. After the
fascist occupation on April 7, 1939, the office was dissolved and transferred to the General Directorate of Press, Propaganda and Tourism, with which it remained until 1941.
A government decree on December 3, 1941 created for the first time the
Ministry of Popular Culture
The Ministry of Popular Culture ( it, Ministero della Cultura Popolare, commonly abbreviated to MinCulPop) was a ministry of the Italian government from 1937 to 1944.
History
It was established by the Fascist government in 1922 as the ''Press ...
, taking over all the duties of the General Directorate of Press, Propaganda and Tourism that ceased to exist.
Communist period
![ATSH building in Tirana, Albania](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/ATSH_building_in_Tirana%2C_Albania.jpg)
ATSH became the official central information institution of the
People's Socialist Republic of Albania
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, links=no) was the Marxist–Leninist one party state that existed in Albania from 1946 to 1992 (the official name of the country was the People's R ...
, voice of the
Labour Party (PPSH) and the socialist state. It was set up immediately after the country's liberation from
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
to collect, process and disseminate information on the ideological, economic, cultural and social activity that took place in Albania, as well as on the political and social events around the world. ATSH was the main source of information for the Party's propaganda, for the Albanian press, radio and television and as a center for the processing of press materials from foreign agencies. Under the supervision of Thanas Nano, the activity of ATSH was based solely on the
Marxist-Leninist principles of the labour party and the teachings of comrade
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
for popular journalism. It conveyed to the working masses the policy of the party, presented its achievements in all fields of socialist construction in Albania and the defence of the homeland. The agency published daily and periodical newsletters of domestic and foreign news. It had correspondents in all districts and its photographic service popularized various activities that took place throughout the country.
Internet era
In 1993, the
UNDP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
set up a system for the agency to go online internally with PTT lines. The first exchange of information using
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
was made by ATSH in 1995, where the sending of information was done through the agency TEL–PRESS. During this time, the usage of paper was being phased out and the teletext service through which the transmission was carried out took over. The ATSH website was created in that same year and redesigned again three years later, in 1998. It published news in three languages:
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
,
French and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
. Initially the website had only non-video and audio content but after 1998, other elements were introduced such as videos and photos, thus formatted on the basis of enriching the new media genres.
The new technology implemented in this institution brought a new perspective on how to treat information, which was based on freedom of writing and the removal of censorship, enabling the increase of information and materials that were transmitted here. The editorial offices covered news and every day events ranging from politics, the economy, cultural life, sports, etc.
Reorganization
* Press Office at the
MFA and the
MIA
Mia, MIA, or M.I.A. may refer to:
Music Artists
* M.I.A. (rapper) (born 1975), English rapper and singer
* M.I.A. (band), 1980s punk rock band from Orange County, California
* MIA., a German rock/pop band formed in 1997
* Mia (singer) (born 1983) ...
(1927–1939)
* General Directorate of Press, Propaganda and Tourism (1939–1941)
* Branch of the Ministry of Popular Culture (1941–1944)
* Telegraphic Agency (1945–present)
Directors (1927–present)
Notes
References
{{Authority control
1954 establishments in Albania
Mass media agencies of Albania
Government agencies established in 1954
News agencies based in Albania