The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international
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 ...
and
wire service
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, ...
, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web site.
Editorial policy
The JTA is a
not-for-profit corporation
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
governed by an independent board of directors. It claims no allegiance to any specific branch of
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
or political viewpoint. "We respect the many Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations out there, but JTA has a different mission — to provide readers and clients with balanced and dependable reporting", wrote JTA editor-in-chief and CEO and publisher Ami Eden. He gave as an example of the JTA's coverage of the ''Mavi Marmara'' activist ship.
JTA is an affiliate of 70 Faces Media, a not-for-profit American media company. Other sites under the 70 Faces Media company include Kveller, ''Alma'', and Nosher.
History
The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau (a 25 year old) as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in
the Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
, in
the Netherlands
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, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. Its mandate was to collect and disseminate news affecting the Jewish communities around the world, especially from the European World War I fronts. In 1919, it moved to London, under its current name.
In 1922, the JTA moved its headquarters to New York City. By 1925, over 400 newspapers (Jewish and general) subscribed to the JTA.
In November 1937, German Third Reich secret police closed the Berlin bureau of the JTA, a U.S. news bureau, charging it with "endangering public safety and order."
In 1940, the JTA spawned the Overseas News Agency (ONA). Although designed to appear like a normal news agency, it was in fact secretly funded by the British
intelligence service
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.
Means of informatio ...
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
. ONA provided press credentials to British spies, and planted fake news stories in US newspapers.
Meyer Levin
Meyer Levin (October 7, 1905 – July 9, 1981) was an American novelist. Perhaps best known for his work on the Leopold and Loeb case, Levin worked as a journalist (for the ''Chicago Daily News'' and, from 1933–1939, as an editor for ''Esquir ...
was a war correspondent in Europe during World War II, representing the Overseas News Agency and the JTA.
Its cable service improved the quality and range of Jewish periodicals. Today, it has correspondents in
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
,
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, Moscow, and 30 other cities in North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and Australia. The JTA is committed to covering news of interest to the Jewish community with journalistic detachment.
In 2015, the news service merged with the site MyJewishLearning to create 70 Faces Media.
Staff
Boris Smolar Boris "Ber" Smolar (May 27, 1897 – January 31, 1986) was a Russian-born Jewish-American journalist and newspaper editor from New York. Life
Smolar was born on May 27, 1897 in Rivne, Russia, the son of Leivia Smolar and Miriam Shearer.
Smolar re ...
joined the JTA in 1924, and retired as its editor-in chief in 1967.
Journalist
Daniel Schorr
Daniel Louis Schorr (August 31, 1916 – July 23, 2010) was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio (NPR). Schorr won three Emmy Awards for his te ...
began his career as an assistant news editor for the JTA, from 1934 to 1941.
Haskell Cohen
Haskell Cohen (March 12, 1914 – June 28, 2000) was the public relations director of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1950 to 1969. He is known as the creator of the NBA All-Star Game. He was inducted to the International Jewish Spor ...
was the sports editor for the JTA for 17 years; he is best known for later as the
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
director of public relations creating the
NBA All Star Game
The National Basketball Association All-Star Game is a basketball exhibition game hosted every February by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and showcases 24 of the league's star players. It is the featured event of NBA All-Star Weekend, a ...
in 1951. Harold U. Ribalow was later the sports editor of the JTA. In the 1960s, novelist and lawyer
Eleazar Lipsky
Eleazar Lipsky (September 6, 1911 – February 14, 1993) was a prosecutor, lawyer, novelist and playwright born in the Bronx, New York, United States. He wrote the novels that formed the basis of two very successful films, ''Kiss of Death'' (b ...
was the JTA's president.
Lillie Shultz Lillie Shultz (1904 – April 14, 1981) was a journalist, a writer, an administrator for the American Jewish Congress, communal worker and activist against discrimination.
Lillie (Lillian) Shultz (also spelled Schultz) served from 1933 to 1944, as ...
, later a journalist and the chief administrative officer of the
American Jewish Congress
The American Jewish Congress (AJCongress or AJC) is an association of American Jews organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts.
History
The AJCongress was ...
, was a staff member of the JTA in the early 1930s. /ref>
Reception
In 1933,
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winner
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
said in a speech at a dinner in his honor that the JTA was "very close to my heart", and that the JTA was keeping the public objectively informed about the lot of the Jews all countries: "in a graphic and objective manner, and in so doing it has peformed an important service ..."
In March 1942, in connection with its 25th anniversary the JTA received congratulatory messages from U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
("I trust through long decades to come that this medium of information will serve the world with fidelity and courage by the widest possible dissemination of the truth"), and
U.S. Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of th ...
Henry Stimson
Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and D ...
, British Ambassador
Lord Halifax
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 19 ...
Lowell Mellett
Lowell Mellett (1886 - 1960) was a journalist best known for supervising the series Why We Fight during World War 2.
Early life
Born in small-town Indiana, Mellett claimed his interest in public affairs came from holding a torch in rallies for ri ...
, and Benjamin V. Cohen of the U.S. National Power Policy Committee.
See also
*
Ron Kampeas
Ron Kampeas is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), "responsible for coordinating coverage in the U.S. capital and analyzing political developments that affect the Jewish world."Morris Iushewitz
*
The Jewish Week
''The Jewish Week'' is a weekly independent community newspaper targeted towards the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. ''The Jewish Week'' covers news relating to the Jewish community in NYC. In March 2016, ''The Jewish We ...