Czech News Agency and Public Administration

Přemysl Cenkl, business director

The Czech news agency is a national news agency, which collects, processes and distributes news and other informations from all spheres of human activity for wide range of Czech and foreign clients.

Agency offers quick, non-commented regular summaries of news as well as research tools for event analysis, comments and background profiles.

Information products of CTK are presently well known and used by hundreds of clients.

Among them belong:

In 1996 CTK launched electronic newspaper České noviny on address http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/, which soon became the most-widely read news service on the Czech internet, providing useful information and directly influencing the public.

Over the last period CTK increased offer of information products to institutions of local government. On working days it publishes information product POLIS, which is transmitted in co-operation with TRIADA company and goes on free on address http://denik.obce.cz/. These highly used daily news service chapters contain domestic informations from regions, towns, municipalities and villages, accompanied by brief media monitoring.

CTK has high standards and thus can satisfy information needs of public administration institutions. Agency covers parliamentary sessions and through network of its correspondents gathers news from government of the Czech republic, standpoints of ministries etc. The biggest advantage of CTK is a wide network of regional branches of writing journalists and corps of regional reporters, based in 16 towns of the Czech Republic. Other useful source comes from home and foreign media, international agencies and network of foreign correspondents. Through a strong regional branch CTK closely monitors the events in neighbouring Slovakia.

An important source of news is send to CTK directly from state institutions, and further on is edited and published. State officials and representatives are not new clients to CTK, as they feel a very strong need to inform quickly about political events. One of the forms of CTK co-operation with state administration is releasing their press releases and reliable informations through protext service. While presenting them on Internet, they become instantly accessible to the public. If the item concerns an event (press conference etc.), it goes on the free AVIZO service.

In order to get closer to state institutions, CTK carried out a survey in 1998 (in co-operation with Median agency) of information needs and demands in this targeted group. It has shown the biggest interest to be in the outcome of government sessions, meetings of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate of the Parliament of Czech Republic. The informations from ministries are sought for, as well as bills of laws and their amendments.

In macroeconomy sphere there is a great demand for statistical informations, state budget news and legislation informations. The set also contains stock-exchange news service, exchange rate charts and their development plus news about investment possibilities.

The international news service covers information about EU legislation and directives, as well as information from international companies and investment groups.

With the broad knowledge of the needs of clients, CTK is able to satisfy wide range of requests through the basic products and services.

Daily event summaries:

Other useful products:

CTK new media:

CTK places great emphasis on the method of transmission of its news. It offers a complex service and respects needs of various groups of clients. CTK supplies more demanding clients via satellite link-up broadcasting, together with installation of satellite antennas and receivers.

For clients who use the Lotus Notes software system it enables to update information to their choice. The great advantage of this SW is the replication of data, which enables databases to be updated automatically.

Clients connected to the most modern and popular part of the Internet-the World Wide Web, could connect to electronic media information system InfoBanka CTK, on the address http://www.ctk.cz, where they can use their own browser for search and abstraction of the news. Main advantage of InfoBanka is the division of the complete news service into a specific units with a relatively small payment, starting from 800 CZK/per month.

We have already mentioned mailservice of the news, based on clients special requests and transmitted directly on their e-mail addresses.

Information products POLIS and České noviny are freely accessible on the internet, supplying current events information.

The goal of CTK is to release important informations in real time and thus bring an added value to the client. According the market survey this can be achieved only through comprehensive offer of the information products, combining these viewpoints:

As we seek to do our utmost to fulfil these goals, we ask you to co-operate with us and fill in the enclosed questionnaire, aimed at information needs of the representatives from state administration and self-government. The questionnaire is available at the CTK stall.