Visit of APA - Austria Presse Agentur

On 23 April 2024 we visited "Austria Presse Agentur-APA", Austria's state-independent news agency.

On 23 April 2024 we visited "Austria Presse Agentur - APA" which is one of only a dozen state-independent news agencies worldwide. We were welcomed by Thomas Karabaczek, former Deputy Editor in chief and Head of Economic Reporting who gave us insights into the working of APA. 

APA is organized as a European cooperative; its cooperative members are most of the Austrian daily newspapers and the public broadcaster ORF. It defines itself as a national news agency in the sense that it provides and connects media, politics, institutions, companies and non-governmental organizations with information in the form of text, images, graphics, video and live video.

Today, however, APA, Europe's largest purely national news agency, generates only a third of its revenue from news agency services. It has developed into a general information service provider and operates one of Europe's largest media database, where practically all domestic media are stored, and offers press reviews (DeFacto), media monitoring, dispatch of press releases (OTS)and IT services. 

After the very interesting presentation we had the opportunity of visiting the open-space Newsroom where all the information is collected and fed into the news cycles. Over refreshments we were able to discuss some more topics like the role of AI in reporting and the issues of fact checking as a new important field for news agencies.