The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union was founded on July 10, 1925. It took over the main functions of the Russian Telegraph Agency as the central information agency of the country. TASS enjoyed "exclusive right to gather and distribute information outside the Soviet Union, as well as the right to distribute foreign and domestic information within the Soviet Union, and manage the news agencies of the Soviet republics." At its height, TASS news and photos were received by 4,000 Soviet newspapers, television and radio stations, and over a thousand foreign media outlets. The agency ran one of the biggest networks of correspondents in the world -- with 682 offices in the Soviet Union and 94 bureaus abroad, and almost 2,000 journalists and photojournalists on staff.

TASS became the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS) in January 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The official website of ITAR-TASS is www.itar-tass.ru/?langID=2

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This page was last updated on 10/11/2009.