The Polish Press Agency ( pl, Polska Agencja Prasowa, PAP) is

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

's national

news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswir ...

, producing and distributing political, economic, social, and cultural news as well as events information. The agency has 14 news desks in its headquarters in Warsaw and 24 regional bureaux. As of 2013, PAP had nearly 500 employees and associates, including 300 journalists in Warsaw, 70 regional correspondents, 40 photojournalists and 30 foreign correspondents (among others in Berlin, Brussels, Kiev, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Sofia, Stockholm, Washington and Vilnius). In May 2018, PAP launched an English-language news portal called Thefirstnews.com that focuses mainly on events in Poland, claiming that international media did not always portray the country "entirely accurately" and with the goal of reaching "specific opinion-forming circles" with the help of social media." In 2019 the company announced plans to extend its foreign correspondent network to additional countries in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

in order to expand its presence in Central European and global markets. According to the agency's website, its content reaches 96.5% of Polish Internet users via online media.

History

Polska Agencja Prasowa S.A. was incorporated in 1918 as the Polish Telegraphic Agency (PTA). In 1944 following the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

entry into

German-occupied Poland German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration. The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...

, the company was taken over by the Polish communists and set up under its current name as the local alternative to the still functioning Polish Telegraphic Agency loyal to the

Polish government in exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

from 1939 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. During the reign of

communism in Poland Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (''Socjaldemokracja Króles ...

, PAP was a government institution and the official communist mouthpiece. In 1990 after the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

and the

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

in Europe, the company was reformed and in 1991 the original PTA was finally merged into PAP to form the present-day Agency. PAP has gradually expanded the number of its news desks, journalists and correspondents. In 1993, the agency launched satellite transmission of its services and started online news distribution in 1995. In 2001, it joined the

European Pressphoto Agency EPA Images , European Pressphoto Agency B.V. (EPA Images) is an international news photo agency. Images from all parts of the world covering news, politics, sports, business, finance as well as arts, culture and entertainment are provided by a ...

(EPA). In the early 2000s, PAP had field reporters covering NATO operations in Iraq.

Services

Polish language services

The Daily News Service is updated on seven-days-a-week basis, 24 hours a day, and offers around 1000 articles everyday, mainly on politics, business, economy, foreign affairs, sports, science and education. The business service is prepared by a team of 35 financial editors and several dozen reporters, supported by numerous domestic and foreign correspondents. It covers more than 1000 capital market entities and provides over 100 news items a day.

Multimedia

PAP-Photo produces and distributes the Daily Photographic Service that offers around 200-300 photos from across Poland and about 1000 images from around the world thanks to the cooperation with the

(EPA), with a large archive of photographs available. It also provides video content and infographics service in the form of charts, tables, diagrams, maps, 3D animations and interactive graphics.

Other language services

The Daily News Service is also available in English and Russian. The English service brings major political, economic, social and cultural coverage from Poland and is compiled from PAP regular news service by a team of editors and translators. In 2022, PAP launched a Ukrainian-language service in response to the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

and the resulting influx of refugees.

Notable journalists

For many years the celebrated travel writer

Ryszard Kapuściński Ryszard Kapuściński (; 4 March 1932 – 23 January 2007) was a Polish journalist, photographer, poet and author. He received many awards and was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kapuściński's personal journals in bo ...

worked as a field reporter for PAP; his posting as the agency's first Africa correspondent provided the material and inspiration for many of his later writings. Many other prominent Polish journalists and intellectuals worked for PAP at some point of their careers. That includes

Wojciech Jagielski Wojciech Jagielski (born 12 September 1960) is a Polish people, Polish journalist and author. He has won acclaim for his reportage from conflict zones in the Transcaucasus, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Africa. He worked for the leading Polish ne ...

who has won acclaim for his reportage from conflict zones in the

Transcaucasus The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arm ...

, the

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, renowned

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...

and publisher Władysław Kopaliński, author, war correspondent and Poland's ambassador to India Krzysztof Mroziewicz, travel writer and sailor

Leonid Teliga Leonid Teliga (28 May 1917 – 21 May 1970) was a Polish sailor, writer, journalist, translator, and the first Polish people, Pole to single-handedly circumnavigation, circumnavigate the globe on his yawl ''Opty''. Life Youth Although he was ...

as well as journalist, columnist and essayist Leopold Unger who reported for the agency from

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

of 1962.

References

External links

* http://www.pap.pl homepage {{Authority control 1944 establishments in Poland News agencies based in Poland