NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

dapd: German News Agencies Launch a New Basic Service

"Soon we shall see what the alliance of the ddp and the previous German AP has to offer", said the chief editor and managing director Cord Dreyer (48). "The collaboration of the editors enables a distinctly expanded topic coverage, both in text and images. Thanks to the dapd newsplaner, the editors of the media houses can create an image of the agency planning in advance, and also help to steer it. This has previously been considered almost impossible within the agency business."

With the launch of the dapd basic service, the research team "sources" also took over its work. Experienced journalists conducted investigating research here without current time pressure. "Exclusive topics, which are prepared in various formats and images, help our newspaper clients to position their title as high-class and exciting", Dreyer said.

Contributions worth millions are being invested into the build-up of the new complete offer of the agency group, amongst other things for additional correspondent offices, an interactive news portal and a multimedia-based editing system, which simultaneously went into operation today. "In the coming months, the range of offers of the dapd group will be expanded step by step", Dreyer announced. "After having just one full agency for so long in Germany, we will create fresh wind and competition in this area."

dapd will make available up to 500 textual news and up to 2000 images from Germany and overseas every day. Infographics, online services and mobile offers will also be added to this. Further offers for media houses are to follow shortly.

The dapd media holding AG is a news agency group, which encompasses the ddp and the German AP - two of the largest German agencies. The dapd supplies a total of approximately 700 clients with the latest text and images. Among the clients are a vast majority of the German daily newspapers, numerous magazines and journals, online media, TV and radio channels, political parties and governments. The headquarters of the agencies is Berlin. In December 2009,the dapd media holding AG took over the German-speaking service of the American news agency Associated Press (AP). From September 2010 onwards, both agencies provide a new, collaborative service, which offers a complete, worldwide news coverage in text and images. Apart from the classical topics of politics, economics, panorama and culture, a resort for investigative research is also provided. The regional services report about the different regions of Germany, and advisory and toipical services offer consumer information from all regions of everyday life. The image service with up to 2,000 daily photos offers a national and international coverage, including sports. The services can also be obtained as web concent for online media.

dapd media holding AG
Wolfgang Zehrt
Press spokesman dapd media holding AG
Telephone: +49 (0)30 23122 215
E-Mail: wolfgang.zehrt@ddpdirect.de
Internet: www.dapd.de