TASR Released 261,000 Reports and Ended Year in Black in 2021

Bratislava, June 9 (TASR) – Last year, the News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR) published 261,475 reports and met all its statutory tasks, ending the year with a profit, according to the 2021 report on the activities and management of TASR that was discussed by the parliamentary culture and media committee on Thursday.

“Aggregate costs amounted to €4,783,933, revenues to €4,796,716,” TASR general director Vladimir Puchala specified at the meeting. “Revenues amounted to €5,577,577 in 2021, expenditures were reported at €5,311,842. TASR ended the year 2021 with a surplus of €265,735,” added the head of the agency.

Of the 261,475 released reports, 151,067 were text and 13,060 audio. TASR also produced 92,795 photographs, 4,553 video recordings and carried out 858 live broadcasts from all over Slovakia.

The chairman of the TASR board of directors, Jozef Bednar, highlighted how TASR treated the dominant topic in 2021 – the pandemic. “TASR editors delved into all areas of this topic, as this was necessary,” he stressed, adding that it was the agency’s coverage that underlined the credibility of information at a time marked by an increased rate of misleading conspiracy theories and hoaxes. Bednar also noted that no significant objections or justified complaints were raised against TASR’s coverage during the year.

Puchala added that Italian agency ANSA has been added to TASR’s portfolio of international cooperation, while cooperation with German agency DPA and France’s AFP on a project aimed at building a joint newsroom of news agencies in Brussels is in the pipeline. Puchala also reported on the agency’s new projects, including the Conference on the Future of Europe campaign, for which the public news agency has received a grant from the European Parliament, as well as a new product, TASR News, which offers cross-sectional summaries of the most important reports three times a day.

The committee praised the agency’s credibility and the balance of its news coverage as well as its progress in developing new media services.