Athens News Agency: Information

The Athens News Agency (ANA) is the national news agency of Greece. Founded in 1895 as a private company, the Stefanopoli Telegraphic Agency, the Greek State assumed its subsidisation in 1906, at which time it acquired its present name.

In 1994 the ANA became a Societe Anonyme with a 7-member Board of Directors, three of whom are appointed by the government and one each by the journalist unions of Athens and Thessaloniki, the publishers' union and the ANA employees.

ANA collaborates with the international news agencies Reuters, AFP, DPA, ITAR-TASS and a number of national news agencies, as well as the EPA photograph agency.

All the ANA services are on-line, with an estimated 250 news items in Greek and 10-15 items in English moved daily. It also publishes a bi-lingual English and French 'Daily News Bulletin' containing all the Greek and major international news. The ANA further has four data banks in Greek -- news, biographies of Greek and foreign personalities, election results and sports -- and a news bank in English.

The ANA employs 250 persons, of which 160 are journalists, and has offices in Brussels, Istanbul, Nicosia and Bonn and correspondents in Washington, New York, Montreal, Melbourne, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Moscow, Belgrade and Skopje.

ANA's General Director is Andreas Christodoulides. The Editors-in-Chief are Gerassimos Zarkadis and Nikolas Voulelis, while the Special English Service (wire service) is headed by Chris Eliou and the Daily News Bulletin by Andreas Neofytides.