Russian News Agency "TASS"
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| Federal State Unitary Enterprise | |
| Industry | News media |
| Founded | December 1902 (as Commercial Telegraph Agency) or 1904 (as St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency) |
| Headquarters | Moscow, Russian Federation |
| Products | Wire service |
| Owner | wholly owned by federal government (as federal unitary enterprise) |
| Website | tass |
Russian News Agency TASS (Russian: Информационное агентство России ТАСС, tr. Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii TASS), abbr. TASS (Russian: ТАСС) is a major news agency in Russia, founded in 1902. Tass is the largest Russian news agency, and the fourth largest in the world after Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia. Headquartered in Moscow, TASS has 70 offices in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as 68 bureaus around the world.
The TASS name comes from the former Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Russian: Телеграфное агентство Советского Союза, Tyelyegrafnoye agyentstvo Sovyetskogo Soyuza) which was the central agency for news collection and distribution for all Soviet newspapers, radio and television stations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the agency was renamed "Information Telegraph Agency of Russia" (ITAR-TASS) in 1992, but regained the simpler TASS name in 2014.
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 began during the first battles of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904, the agency had to change 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.
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