Anadolu Agency begins regional-based global broadcasting

Anadolu Agency (AA) began a new regional-based global broadcasting system as a next step after concentrating on broadcasting in English.   Within the framework of AA's centennial vision, AA will be managed in 5 different regions in the world with regional-based global broadcasting. AA Director General Kemal Ozturk informed AA employees about the reorganization of Anadolu Agency. Ozturk said "if our English service develops as quickly as our Arabic service and beats the Arabic service, we will catch up other news agencies even before AA's centenary." "Broadcasting in English is an operation which increase our brand value to the highest level. We are looking for experienced editors, correspondents, translators. Anadolu News Academy began its third term and we will choose and educate a team who can work as agency correspondents in English," Ozturk emphasized. "AA is in a very critical era to step into," said Ozturk. Touching on the time period of two years in which he came to power in the agency, Ozturk said "we are not in a spot where we aim to be but we are in a position which is praiseworthy." -We are in third term of AA's centennial vision Reminding that in the first stage, AA broadcast in Turkish and was effective in Turkey and at the second stage, started broadcasting Arabic, Bosnian and Russian and focused on languages and broadcasting news in different languages, Ozturk said, we strongly organized in Balkans and in the Middle East and now we are perceived as the first agency in the Middle East. Ozturk said "the position we have reached after two years with AA's aim to be in the top five news agencies in the world forces us to establish a new reorganization and work model."   Indicating that two years ago, AA used to publish 600 Turkish news daily and now this figure increased to one thousand 500, Ozturk said "we could not close the gap with other news agencies because they also increased the number of news they published." Pointing that previously news in English department was translated from Turkish and 40 to 50 news were broadcast, Ozturk said now the news was written directly in English. Ozturk also stated that President, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs were followed by correspondents separately to write the news both in Turkish and English. Emphasizing that whatever happens in the region will be stated in three languages, Ozturk underlined "we transferred to regional-based broadcasting from language-based broadcasting." Ozturk said "we divided the world into five regions" and added, the editorships of diplomacy, visual news, sports, economy-finance and new media were promoted to the level of directorships for global broadcasting. "We transformed America region by combining the north with Latin America. We renewed our New York and Washington offices and strengthened our teams there. We will manage whole America continent from New York," Ozturk said. Ozturk added, "Our second region is Europe and Brussels will be the center for our corporation in Europe. If a new chapter for Turkey will be opened in Brussels, the region of Europe will follow it. Whether the news needs to be published in German, France, English or other languages, the decision will be given by this region and the region will broadcast the news. The whole Europe will be coordinated by one center". -Same speed at broadcasting news in three languages Ozturk said, from now on there will be correspondents who can directly write news in English in Cairo and we broadcast news in three different languages -Turkish, English and Arabic- with the same speed. "The correspondents listen to the prime minister in Turkish and write the news in English or Arabic right now," Ozturk said and added, therefore, AA advanced quickly. Ozturk also said, AA planned to open new office in Nairobi, Kenya and will manage the continent from there with broadcasting in French. Noting that AA's critical investment, a new news streaming system called "HAS" is the most developed news system, Ozturk said, "Tunis news agency notified us that the agency wants to buy HAS program". "HAS system is the infrastructure of our international organization. It has the capacity to publish news in 100 different languages. The system helped us get upgraded to the higher level," said Ozturk. AA member of board Nihat Erdogan also informed the AA employees about new organization structure and said "no one could guess AA could reach to this point," and added, "l need to underline that from now on we see a global AA".