FEATURES OF WORK FOR INFORMATION AGENCIES

Any information agency will be competent and respected only in the case of operational and uninterrupted work of all its employees, no matter how large the team. The scale of production here is really great. For example, take one of the world's largest news agencies - ITAR-TASS. His nearly century-long history has allowed Tassovts to accumulate a unique creative and professional experience. In Moscow and 134 regional centers, in 67 countries of five continents there are highly qualified journalists who daily produce about 4,200 kilobytes of various text materials (they can fill about 100 newspaper pages), as well as a few dozen operational photographs and graphic images. The INFO-TASS data bank has the richest possibilities, the unique photo archive includes about 1 million images. The agency also publishes authoritative analytical and reference publications. The above data speaks of the extremely tense and large-scale work of ITAR-TASS employees.

There are several important features of the work of a journalist in an information agency. First of all, it is a constant readiness for urgent execution of the operational task. Any agency information always has the exact time of the message and most often includes the date of the current day. Operational occasion is the basis of any information transmitted. Another feature is called the "flair for the news . " In this regard, it makes sense to remind the old truth: the news must be planned. This means that you need to have the closest links with the sources of information and know in advance the plans of the objects, the activities of which are entrusted to cover the reporter. The third important feature is high responsibility for each word transmitted. This is quite understandable: if the news agency sends an inaccurate, erroneous message, then many media will spread it. Therefore, the departments of references are subjected to thorough verification of all the facts, dates, names and titles, references to documents referred to in the information. There are also features of building materials for news agencies. Virtually any message is prepared according to the “inverted pyramid” principle, the leader paragraph is obligatory. High demands are placed on the reliability of information.

Since agencies address their products to all media, every message should be interesting both to newspapers and magazines, and to radio and television. This means that the correspondent must take into account the peculiarities of various media. For example, the Unified News Feed (version 1) ITAR-TASS, the main product of this factory of operational information, reports on all noteworthy events in Russia, the near and far abroad, covers the activities of the highest echelons of power, news in the socio-political, business and cultural spheres , the main events in the world of sports, affects the criminal theme. The tape is transmitted to subscribers in real time via the Internet, via e-mail and online, via dedicated and switched communication channels, satellite systems subject ITAR-TASS, on the systems “TV-Inform-TASS”, “Radio text”, as well as regular mail in printed form. The distribution system itself says that the information prepared by the journalist should be “digestible” for all these channels. The agency takes into account the needs of specific media. For example, Teleradiovnik contains almost ready for broadcast news broadcasts from Russia and abroad. These are seven non-recurring releases per day, calculated for 3-4 minutes each. Other features of both print and audiovisual media are also taken into account. The St. Petersburg Regional Department of ITAR-TASS, for example, prepares packages for various topics according to preliminary orders from customers and delivers them to customers with the necessary frequency.

As already noted, work in news agencies encourages journalists to be highly responsive. When preparing material for radio or television, the time in the text should be indicated by the words “just now” or “an hour ago.” The daily newspaper is suitable "today", a weekly magazine or enough "the other day." Special requirements are imposed when preparing exclusive materials. Federal (All-Russian) newspapers will be interested in a message where there are words “for the first time in the world”, “for the first time in Russia”. Regional and regional publications are interested in news from their region. City and district newspapers will be happy to take information that mentions local celebrities, well-known companies or individuals.

Since news agencies sell their products, the journalist has to advertise them. Of course, special services must be created for this, but in practice it happens to be engaged in advertising and reporters. They have strong reasons: although almost all the necessary information is now available on the Internet from free servers, it is difficult to verify there. In passing, we note that the information products of the agencies are subject to copyright and protected by law. Any changes to the materials are unacceptable. This is often forgotten by both newspaper reporters and journalists of the audiovisual media. There are other legal features. If the Russian agency works with information received from foreign sources, then in accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation “On participation in international information exchange” it is responsible for the information disseminated. So, when preparing a material for distribution in Russia, a journalist is obliged to check the accuracy of the messages received.