Anadolu Agency

Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Ajansı, or AA) started transmitting on 1 January 1920, months before the Turkish Grand National Assembly convened, because the nationalist movement needed its own wire to counter foreign-controlled reporting on the war. Halide Edib Adıvar, already a well-known novelist, and her husband, the physician and politician Adnan Adıvar, set it up in Ankara. The founding idea, a national institution telling Turkey's story in its own words, still runs through how the agency presents itself a century later.

From its headquarters in Çankaya, Ankara, AA now publishes in 13 languages, including Turkish, English, Arabic, Russian, French, Chinese, Albanian and Indonesian, and keeps bureaus in more than 100 countries. The written wire is the core, but photo and video services feed international subscribers too. Its Anadolu Images archive sells access to a photo collection that goes back to the agency's earliest years, and the agency has pushed into explainer and feature work alongside the breaking-news file. The English service runs its own site, Facebook page, YouTube channel and X account, separate from the Turkish and Arabic feeds.

Press freedom organizations regularly argue that AA's editorial line tracks the Turkish government's, particularly on domestic politics and foreign policy. The agency rejects that characterization and describes its mission as accurate reporting from Turkey and the regions it covers. For readers outside Turkey, AA is often the fastest source of Turkish government statements and a steady supplier of wire copy from the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia and Africa. [edit]