ANSA - Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata – Italy

Born on January 15th, 1945, ANSA is a cooperative of 37 associated editors that publish Italian major dailies. Such a structure represents nowadays a guarantee of impartiality and completeness of information.
Over 2000 news items translated in four languages (Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese) reach the 4000 users spread over five Continents in real time 24 hours a day thanks to the updated transmission systems.
A network of 22 offices in Italy, plus 83 offices in 78 countries (of which 21 in South America) make possible a rapid and widespread distribution of information.
Nowadays the Agency has become a modern editorial organisation which supplies information to Italian media, central and local institutions, international bodies and professional category organisations, as well as to unions and the political world. In recent years ANSA has updated its products to the evolution of technologies, exploiting the opportunities that the market offers in the multimedia field with audio-visual formats for the web, satellite television and mobile phones.
Today, millions of people all over the world, through old and new media, can read ANSA news awarding them the everlasting values of reliability, timeliness, objectivity, authoritativeness.

The Photographic Production
ANSA’s international photographic news production is developed by the photographic staff made up of journalists, photographers, technicians and experts. The internal structure works alongside with 70 external collaborators distributed over all Italian Regions.
The full international photographic coverage is guaranteed by collaboration agreements with the most important international agencies. ANSA, as exclusive representative of Italy, is member of the EPA network, (European Pressphoto Agency: http://www.epa-photos.com) which connects the main European news agencies.Over 300 high quality daily captioned photos in digital format guarantee a quick and widespread transmission of all the main events in Italy and abroad, pertaining to main events, politics, economic issues, sports and entertainment. It is possible to access the service through the Multimedia News Browser developed by ANSA and supported by the most widespread operative systems (Windows, MacIntosh, Linux), via satellite by means of DVB digital technology with possible Internet backup, or directly through the web.

BELGA - Agence Telegraphique Belge de Presse S.A. - Belgium



On the 20th August 1920, Pierre-Marie Olivier and Maurice Travailleur have founded the Belgium Telegraphic Press Agency (Agence Belga). On the 1st January 1921, the agency distributes its first dispatches.
Belga covers all national and international news, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. News is distributed in the form of photos and dispatches (text) in French and Dutch.
Belga covers all aspects of life and current affairs: politics and economics, finance and social affairs, sports, culture and personalities.

Belga’s main clients are the 'traditional media'- daily press, radio and television. Furthermore, the government and the companies are also to register as clients, as well as internet sites and online applications.

Belga dispatches and pictures are not only intended for the Belgian market, but are also distributed worldwide thanks to the different international agreements signed with the major foreign news agencies.

At present Belga employs 130 people and has three regional offices at Namur, Liège and Antwerp. Its headquarters are in Brussels.

The Photographic Production
From 1946 on, BelgaPictures covers all important Belgian news events and of the Belgian people worldwide, and offers quality images for professional purposes. The images are available within minutes after reception at our photo news desk. Our own Belga photographers send daily between 300 and 800 pictures via Internet, mobile phone of satellite telephone. The international news is also covered via long standing partnerships with international agencies as EPA (the European Pressphoto Agency), AFP (Agence France Presse) and ANP (Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau). In recent years, our offer has been increased and diversified, represented by about 15 agencies, offering news and stock images.

LUSA - Lusa Agencia De Noticias De Portugal - Portugal



LUSA is Portugal’s News Agency and the biggest news agency in the Portuguese language. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it publishes information on all the most important news in Portugal and the world in both text and photographic form, rapidly, factually and impartially, enabling all its customers to keep up to date with all that is happening.
LUSA currently employs 271 people at its head office in Lisbon, its national and international branch offices and in its network of correspondents in Portugal and around the world. The large majority of these (202, or 74.5%) are journalists.
The excellence of our service is only possible because of our complete network of bureaus in Portugal and worldwide. We have 6 delegations all over the country and also in Madrid and Brussels (Europe); Bissau, Praia, Luanda, Maputo and Johannesburg (Africa): Dili, Macao and Beijing (Asia); and in Sao Paulo and Brasilia. We have also about 80 correspondents based abroad, in cities of the 5 continents, as Paris, London, Geneva, Rome, Berlin, and Moscow; Washington, New York and Rio; Rabat and Tel Aviv; or Sidney.   
We have more than 800 permanent clients: all Portuguese national newspapers, radio stations and television networks; most of the regional newspapers and radios; some weekly publications; several media of Portuguese emigrants’ communities abroad; all sport press and some specialised media; Portuguese speaking African countries media and, finally, public and private bodies or institutions.
Every day LUSA produces and distributes, via satellite or through the Internet, around 800 news stories and 250 photographs, which cover a huge variety of national and international topics. Ranging from politics to society, economics to sport and also more specific topics such as science and technology, LUSA covers all areas of current affairs.  
LUSA is a joint-stock company, with a majority of public capital holding (50.1%) and 9 private shareholders.
LUSA results from the merging of the ANOP and NP Agencies in 1987.

The Photographic Production
LUSA has its own photographic department, with 10 staff photographers and 19 freelancers, including those in Macao, Cape-Verde, Guinea Bissau, Angola and Mozambique.
Due to the relationship with EPA (European Press-photojournalism Agency), LUSA gives access to its clients to a service that includes not only national pictures, but also international ones. We are able to sell pictures from the European agencies: DPA, ANP, Belga, Lehtikuva, PAP, Ansa, APA, EFE, Nordfoto, Pressens Bild, Scanpix and MTI. It’s about 250 pictures per day.
On the other hand, trough EPA, LUSA also sells national pictures to the worldwide newspapers.
Our photo service is sold mainly to the media sector, but we also sell photos for editorial purposes or others.

MTI - Magyar Tavirati Iroda reszvenytarsasag - Hungary



The Hungarian News Agency (MTI) has been operating since 1881, making it one of the oldest such agencies in the world. MTI plays a critical role in providing news to the Hungarian media, with almost every major news medium in Hungary listed among the agency’s subscribers.
The Hungarian News Agency filled a unique role before the fall of the Iron Curtain, when Hungary’s geographical location transformed MTI into a link connecting news agencies in the West with those in the socialist bloc, serving as a conduit for the flow of information between the news factories operating in the two world systems.
The Hungarian News Agency is the property of the Hungarian National Assembly, though a separate statute governs MTI’s operations and oversight, thus ensuring that the company is able provide its subscribers with politically neutral news in its capacity as a public service. 
MTI publishes between 550 and 600 news items and 220-250 photos per day, with information regarding domestic events of international interest also provided in English. The Hungarian News Agency’s network of domestic reporters is unparalleled in Hungary, while MTI maintains nine permanent staff offices abroad and employs freelance stringers in four  countries to report on foreign affairs of interest in Hungary.
MTI President Mátyás Vince has been a member of the board of the European Alliance of News Agencies since 2006.

The Photographic Production
The Hungarian Press Agency employs thirteen press photographers, five of whom are located outside of Budapest in the cities of Debrecen, Szeged, Pecs, Szombathely and Hatvan. MTI also receives photos from freelance photographers located throughout the rest of the country and in Budapest. Digital and other communications technology utilized at MTI enables our reporters to transmit photos to the editorial office from the scene of an event just a few minutes after it occurs. Editors then make the necessary enhancements and modifications to the photographs and write captions before making them available to our users via the Internet. MTI employs three editors to prepare domestic photographs for publication and three more to process photographs received from abroad.   
The photo desk contributed more than 140 thousand photographs to MTI’s national photo-archives in 2006. Our domestic division produced approximately 95 thousand of these photographs, while MTI acquired 40 thousand more photos from foreign news agencies, to which MTI distributed six thousand domestic photos. MTI dispatched 4,118 of its own photographs to the EPA in 2006.





PAP - Polska Agencja Prasowa - Poland



The Polish Press Agency (PAP) is Poland’s biggest news (text and photo) provider. Currently PAP employs 235 journalists in Poland and abroad.
Founded in 1918 as the Polish Telegraph Agency (PAT), PAP supplies the latest news and photographic material from events in Poland and the world to domestic and foreign media, institutions and corporate market. PAP reporters are sure to be on the scene of anything important and interesting. Their skills combined with the agency’s advanced technology enable any information to reach print media, e-media, corporate market, public institutions and organizations quickly and efficiently.

The Photographic Production
The Agency’s PAP Foto section is a descendant of the 1950-founded Central Photographic Agency (CAF), until the 1980s a monopolist on the Polish press photography market and incorporated into PAP in 1991.
PAP Foto provides Poland’s largest daily photo-service to: country’s leading dailies and periodicals, foreign newspapers and web portals. PAP Foto service is composed of its own production, archives and material supplied by European Press Agency.
The daily service consists of around 300 pictures. PAP Foto sells pictures from its archives and makes photographs on demand. The PAP Foto archives, partly grouped by topic (e.g. VIPs, Solidarity, John Paul II) are also available online. Since 2001 PAP is a shareholder and sole Poland representative of the European Photographic Agency (EPA).
PAP takes part in European projects aimed at raising protection over photographic material as a common European heritage. Together with national photographic agencies in Italy, Belgium, Hungary and Portugal, the Agency is involved in project of SHPAENA dedicated to digitalization of photo archives. Project is subsidized by the EU’s Culture 2000 program.
In the PAP Foto archives there are around 18 million photographs dating back to  the 19th century.