News agencies
In 2006 the two leading Greek public agencies, Athens News Agency and Macedonian News Agency were merged, mainly for economic reasons, and formed the only Greek news agency, with the typical sense of the expression, as there are others so-called agencies that are nothing more than news sites that choose to be called agencies. Athens News Agency (ANA), which was founded in 1895 by private initiative and became public years later, whereas Macedonian News Agency (MPA), was founded in Thessaloniki by the state in 1991. Apart from the creation of a powerful agency with more resources, the most important reason for the merge, was, according to the government at the time, the cut of the expenses. The agency nowadays has approximately 250 employees, of which 180 are journalists.
During the Greek financial crisis, The Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) faced difficult times too, with the governments that were changing all the time, pursuing changes that were putting the existence of the agency at risk. For example including the agency in the public sector companies, endangered its cooperation with the leading world agencies like Reuters and photograph news agencies like EPA. After going through difficulties, the course of the agency seems to be more stable today. The new management has decided to open the agency to the society, providing much more news for free in the front page, as well as a series of special webpages for tourism, EU, business, health, sport, the Macedonia region, etc. Moreover, the AMNA publishes a free-press magazine and broadcasts a radio station in Thessaloniki. These developments and the government’s financial support have driven the agency to profits. Actually, for the first time in many years, the agency doesn’t need extra funding from the state, as it used to be especially in the last two months of each year.