The Czech News Agency (), abbreviated to ČTK, is a national

public service A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private busin ...

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 ma ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It provides its services in

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

and English.

History

ČTK was founded on 28 October 1918, on the same day as

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, as Czechoslovak News Agency. It was formed from several unoffical Czech press agencies, which until then functioned in exile. It published in several languages, including in German together with then-official Czechoslovak. The agency remained throughout both the Nazi and Communist regimes, however, its reporting was highly censored and it served to the regimes' needs.

As modern ČTK

Following the

Velvet Revolution The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Pa ...

of 1989, the government lost its power to ceased interfere in editorial decisions. In 1993, the government relinquished control of the agency, which has since been managed by its CEO in his sole responsibility. Following the Velvet divorce, the agency split to Czech Press Agency, which kept using the ČTK branding, and a newly created News Agency of the Slovak Republic, also know as TASR. Today, the lower house of Czech Parliament elects a ČTK Council, composed of seven members with limited oversight responsibilities. Members of the board are not allowed to be politically active.www.ctk.eu
/ref> Together with the

Czech Television Czech Television ( ; abbreviation: ČT) is a public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, broadcasting six channels. Established after breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1992, it is the successor to Czechoslovak Television founded in 1953. H ...

and

Czech Radio Czech Radio (, ČRo) is the public radio broadcaster of the Czech Republic operating continuously since 1923. It is the oldest national radio broadcaster in continental Europe and the second-oldest in Europe after the BBC. Czech Radio was esta ...

, it belongs to the modern-day Czech public service media. Unlike the other two organisations, ČTK does not receive funds from broadcasting fees since 1996, and its dependant on offering commercial services.

Services

Apart from traditional wire service, ČTK offers access to its photo banks and information databases. ČTK inherited a large photo archive, covering almost the whole of the 20th century. In 2009, it began digitalising several selected parts of its archive. Starting in 2019, it started a full archive digitalisation in cooperation with the

National Library of the Czech Republic The National Library of the Czech Republic () is the central library of the Czech Republic. It is directed by the Ministry of Culture (Czech Republic), Ministry of Culture. The library's main building is located in the historical Clementinum buil ...

. It operates a free news site called ''Czech Newspaper,'' which includes a selection of ČTK's reporting that can be accessed without charge.

References

News agencies based in the Czech Republic Publishing companies established in 1993 Photo agencies Mass media in Prague Czechoslovak companies established in 1918 Companies of Czechoslovakia {{CzechRepublic-media-stub