DRC

News agencies

The Congolese Press Agency (ACP) is the only national news agency. In addition to it, there are other news agencies, mostly foreign, which are alternatives for accessing information in the DRC, mainly for the intellectual class and for other media. They are essentially: Associated Press (AP), Agence France Presse (AFP), Bloomberg, Reuters and Xinhua News Agency.

According to the information available on its website, ACP was created on 12 August, 1960 by decree of the Prime Minister of the time, Patrice Emery Lumumba, on the ashes of the representative office of the Belgian Agency, BELGA, in Kinshasa. The CPA was granted legal personality by presidential decree of 3 February, 1967, making it a "public institution of a technical, administrative and commercial nature." On 2 April, 1981, the ACP - renamed Agence Zaïre Presse (AZAP) in 1971 - became by order a public company placed under the dual technical supervision of the Ministry of the Press and Information, and administrative of the Ministry of the Wallet. During the advent of the regime of the Alliance of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL), the agency has regained its original designation of ACP. Its missions are:

• Searching both in the Democratic Republic of Congo and abroad for elements of accurate and objective information to be made available to users, at a cost;
• Studying and implementing programs or means of information in writing and by images that can serve the international credit of DR Congo;
• Ensuring the existence of a network of institutions that gives it the character of a world-wide news organisation;
• Making special efforts to promote the development of the country through the information it disseminates;
• Taking into account, in the dissemination of its information, the mission of mass education that is incumbent on the Congolese people.

It is important to point out that the ACP is a public media totally in the hands and under the influence of the successive political regimes in Kinshasa since its creation. In terms of agency, its audience is very small because of the unattractive and political nature of its productions. It sells almost nothing outside the DRC.