Editing TASS (section)

== History ==
=== 1902: TTA, SPTA, PTA, ROSTA ===
The origin of TASS dates back to December 1902 when it began operations as the Commercial Telegraph Agency (TTA, Torgovo-Telegrafnoe Agentstvo) under the Ministry of Finance, with Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta's staff being the main supplier of journalists. As the demand for non-business news began during the first battles of the [[Russo-Japanese War]] in February 1904, the agency changed its name to the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (SPTA). As there was no change of headquarters and almost no change in its staff and function, it was a mere rebranding.

In August 1914, one day after [[Saint Petersburg|St. Petersburg]] was renamed Petrograd, SPTA was renamed the Petrograd Telegraph Agency (PTA). It was seized by the [[Bolsheviks]] in November 1917 and by December was renamed as the Central Information Agency of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russian]] [[Government of the Soviet Union|Council of People's Commissars]]. On 7 September 1918, the presidium renamed PTA and the Press bureau into the Russian Telegraph Agency ([[Russian Telegraph Agency|ROSTA]]), which became "the central information agency of the whole Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic".

=== 1925: TASS ===
On July 10, 1925, the ''Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Телеграфное агентство Советского Союза, Telegrafnoye agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza, TASS)'' was established<ref>''News Agencies, Their Structure and Operation'' (UNESCO, 1953) p.56</ref><ref>"Global News and Information Flow in the Digital Age", by Kuldip R. Rampal, in ''Global Communication: A Multicultural Perspective'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) pp.274-275</ref> by a decree of the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]], and took over the duties of the ROSTA as the country's central information agency. 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". Official state information was delivered as the ''TASS Report'' ({{langx|ru|link=no|Сообщение ТАСС}}, ''Soobshchyeniye TASS'').

TASS included affiliated news agencies in all 14 (in 1940–56, 15) Soviet republics in addition to Russia: RATAU ([[Ukrainian SSR]], now [[Ukrinform]]), [[Belarusian Telegraph Agency|BelTA]] ([[Byelorussian SSR]]), ETA ([[Estonian SSR]]), Latinform ([[Latvian SSR]], now [[LETA]]), [[ELTA]] ([[Lithuanian SSR]]), ATEM ([[Moldavian SSR]], now [[Moldpres]]), [[Armenpress]] ([[Armenian SSR]]), Gruzinform ([[Georgian SSR]]), Azerinform ([[Azerbaijan SSR]], now [[AZERTAC]]), UzTAG ([[Uzbek SSR]], now [[Uzbekistan National News Agency|UzA]]), KazTAG ([[Kazakh SSR]], now [[Kazinform]]), KyrTAG ([[Kyrgyz SSR]], now [[Kabar (news agency)|Kabar]]), Turkmeninform ([[Turkmen SSR]], now [[TDH (news agency)|TDH]]) and TajikTA ([[Tajik SSR]], now [[Khovar]]). Over the history other affiliates existed, e.g. KarelfinTAG for the short-lived [[Karelo-Finnish SSR]] (1940–56).{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}  In addition to producing reports for general consumption, TASS produced packages of content for non-public use. Western news reports and potentially embarrassing domestic news would be compiled daily into a collection known as "White Tass", and particularly sensitive news would be compiled into a smaller collection known as "Red Tass". These collections were made available only to top journalists and political leaders, respectively.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hoffman |first=Erik P. |date=1984 |title=The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC |location=New York |publisher=[[DeGruyter]] |page=644 |isbn=0202241645 }}</ref>

In 1961, [[Ria Novosti]] was created to supplement TASS, mainly in foreign reporting and human-interest stories. After 1971, TASS was elevated to the status of State Committee at the [[Government of the Soviet Union]].

The agency was frequently used as a [[front organization]] by the Soviet intelligence agencies, such as the [[NKVD]] (later [[KGB]]) and [[GRU (Soviet Union)|Main Intelligence Directorate]], with TASS employees serving as [[informants]] abroad.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kruglak |first=Theodore Eduard |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/32490 |title=The Two Faces of TASS |date=1962 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-4529-3712-0 |location=Minneapolis}}</ref> In 1959, [[Alexander Alexeyev (diplomat)|Alexander Alexeyev]] was dispatched to Cuba on a fact-finding mission, ostensibly working for TASS.<ref>{{cite interview |last=Alexeyev |first=Alexander |title=Interview with Alexander Alekseyev [Soviet Ambassador to Cuba] |work=[[National Security Archive]] |publisher=[[George Washington University]] |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB400/docs/Interview%20with%20Alekseev.pdf |access-date=30 March 2013}}</ref> Former [[Georgetown University]] professor James David Atkinson stated that TASS was an "effective propaganda medium" but that it concentrated "more heavily on espionage than on other activities."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Atkinson |first=James David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I75sDwAAQBAJ |title=The Edge of War |date=2018-09-03 |publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing |isbn=978-1-78912-280-0 |language=en |oclc=1050955447}}</ref> TASS frequently served as a vector for Soviet [[active measures]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rid |first=Thomas |title=Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare |date=2020-04-21 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0-374-71865-7 |language=en}}</ref>

=== 1992: ITAR-TASS ===
In January 1992, following the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], a [[Decree of the President of Russia|Presidential Decree]] signed by [[Boris Yeltsin]] re-defined the status of TASS and renamed it the ''Information Telegraph Agency of Russia''. In May 1994, the [[Government of Russia|Russian Government]] adopted a [[Order of the Government of Russia|resolution]] "''On approval of the Charter of the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia''", under which it operates as a central government news agency. The TASS acronym was, by this point, well-recognized around the world and so was retained after being redefined as the ''Telegraph agency of communication and messages'' ({{langx|ru|Телеграфное агентство связи и сообщения|Telegrafnoye agentstvo svazi i soobshcheniya}}). The agency as a whole was referred to as "ITAR-TASS".

In September 2014, the agency reverted to its former name as the ''Russian News Agency TASS''.{{Citation needed |date=September 2023}}