European Alliance of News Agencies Celebrates 50th Anniversary and Appoints new President

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The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) has celebrated its 50th anniversary as a forum for cooperation between European news agencies. The celebrations were held in Geneva in connection with a seminar on "Media Trends and News Agency Business" and the association?s annual General Assembly.

At the celebrations British telecom BT?s Chief Executive, Mr Ben Verwaayen, talked about the rapid development of the media environment. Dr Walter Richtberg, former Chief Executive of German news agency dpa and a veteran member of EANA, gave a brief review of EANA?s history.

The first EANA Award for Excellence in News Agency Quality was awarded to Mr Meinolf Ellers, Managing Director of dpa-infocom in Hamburg, a subsidiary of German news agency dpa. Mr Ellers got the prize in his capacity as coordinator of the MINDS project (Mobile Information and News Data Services), a European project on mobile media services developed by dpa-infocom, Dutch news agency ANP, Austrian news agency APA, Hungarian news agency MTI and Swiss news agency SDA/ATS.

At the assembly Dr Wolfgang Vyslozil, Chief Executive of Austrian news agency APA was elected President for two years succeeding Mr Paul Tesselaar, Managing Director of Dutch news agency ANP who was stepping down after his two year term.

Mr Pål Bjerketvedt, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of Norwegian news agency NTB and Mr M?ty?s Vince, President of Hungarian news agency MTI were elected new Bureau (board) members for three years. The other two Bureau members are Mr Steven Brown, Managing Director of Press Association, London and Mr Erik Nyl?n, Stockholm, secretary and re-elected at the assembly.

EANA is registered in Switzerland as a non-profit membership association and has 30 member agencies. Its operations are financed via membership fees. Major objectives for EANA are:

• to secure a business environment where news agencies can fulfil the task of independent and unbiased news reporting. This includes recognition of copyright and related rights for news agencies and access to sources of information.
• to promote co-operation and information exchange between member agencies.
• to offer member agencies a Pan-European professional forum for discussions and exchange of experiences and know-how by organizing seminars, workshops etc.

The 30 member agencies are:

AA - Turkey
AFP - France
ANA - Greece
ATA - Albania
ANP - The Netherlands
ANSA - Italy
APA - Austria
ATS/SDA - Switzerland
BNS - Estonia
BTA - Bulgaria
BELGA - Belgium
CNA - Cyprus
CTK - Czech Republic
DPA - Germany
EFE - Spain
HINA - Croatia
ITAR-TASS - Russia
LUSA - Portugal
MTI - Hungary
NTB - Norway
PA - The UK
PAP - Poland
RITZAU - Denmark
ROMPRES - Romania
STA - Slovenia
STT/FNB - Finland
TANJUG - Serbia
TASR - Slovakia
TT - Sweden
UKRINFORM - Ukraine

For more information:
EANA secretary Erik Nylén, erik-n@telia.com, mobile +46 739 865272