Anadolu Agency named News Agency of Year

By Kemal Karadag

ANKARA (AA) – Anadolu Agency has been named News Agency of the Year by Turkey’s Association of Anatolian Publishers (AYD).

Deputy Director-General Metin Mutanoglu received the award, which was presented Tuesday during a ceremony by former Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc at the 4th Anatolian Media Awards in the capital, Ankara.

Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Family, Labor and Social Services Minister Zehra Zumrut Selcuk as well as deputies and media representatives and journalists were also present.

Stating that Anadolu Agency has been striving to be the voice of Anatolia since its establishment in 1920, Mutanoglu said they would continue to do so.

Mutanoglu said he was receiving the award on behalf of all Anadolu Agency employees and the agency’s Aleppo photojournalist Saleh Mahmoud Laila, who lost his life in a suicide car bombing in the town of Huraytan north of the Syrian city in 2015.

Founded in 1920, Anadolu Agency is a well-established global news agency with operations in most major regions of the world, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Asia-Pacific, and serves subscribers in more than 100 countries.

For its subscribers, the agency produces news stories in 13 languages: Turkish, English, Arabic, BHS (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian), Russian, Kurmanji, Sorani, Persian, French, Albanian, Macedonian, Indonesian and Spanish.