Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA)

The Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) is the federal state-owned newspaper publisher of Ethiopia, headquartered in Addis Ababa. Established in 1940 as a public media enterprise, EPA is the country’s oldest continuously operating press institution and is the sole publisher of Ethiopia’s only daily Amharic-language newspaper, Addis Zemen, and the daily English-language Ethiopian Herald. The agency also publishes the weekly Berissa in Afaan Oromo, the weekly Al-Alem in Arabic, the bimonthly magazine Zemen (recently rebranded as Zemen Economy), the children’s magazine Bilatenat (launched 2024), and its Afaan Oromo edition Naa’otaa. With a staff of more than 300, EPA combines direct state subsidy with self-generated income from circulation, advertising and government printing contracts. The current Chief Executive Officer is Mesafint Tefera, appointed by the House of Peoples’ Representatives on 19 December 2023, sworn in alongside Getnet Tadesse (then EBC CEO), and confirmed in post as of mid-2025. The Board Chair is Dr. Mihret, appointed in November 2022.

EPA is institutionally distinct from the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), the state wire service, although the two are sometimes conflated in external reporting. EPA produces newspapers; ENA produces wire copy, magazine content and television/radio output. Both are state-owned and accountable to Parliament, but they operate as separate enterprises under different management.

Media assets

Daily newspapers: Addis Zemen (Amharic, founded 7 June 1941, daily since late 1958, circulation ~19,000); The Ethiopian Herald (English, launched 3 July 1943, daily except Mondays, circulation ~10,000)

Weekly newspapers: Berissa (Afaan Oromo, founded 1968, circulation ~3,000); Al-Alem (Arabic, circulation ~2,500)

Magazines: Zemen / Zemen Economy (bimonthly); Bilatenat (children’s, launched 2024); Naa’otaa (Afaan Oromo children’s edition)

2026 dataset addition: EPA has been added to the State Media Monitor dataset in the 2026 update cycle. Previous SMM coverage of Ethiopia misattributed Addis Zemen and Ethiopian Herald to ENA. This profile separates EPA as the institutionally and editorially distinct federal state newspaper publisher, correcting the previous mis-classification and extending the Ethiopia dataset to reflect the actual structure of federal state media.

Ownership and governance

EPA is a fully state-owned public media enterprise of the Ethiopian federal government, headquartered in Addis Ababa. It is governed by a board confirmed by the House of Peoples’ Representatives and led by a Chief Executive Officer, also confirmed by Parliament. The current board, sworn in on 8 November 2022, is chaired by Dr. Mihret with members including Deacon Daniel Kibret (a senior adviser to PM Abiy Ahmed), Maereg Bezabih, Dr. Negeri Lencho, Ustaz Abubeker Mohammed, Hana Araya Selassie, Prof. Mekuriya Mekasha, Nebiya Mohamed and Dr. Kairedin Tezera. The CEO position has been held since 19 December 2023 by Mesafint Tefera, succeeding the previous director (the immediate predecessor’s name is not publicly recorded in available sources). Mesafint has a research and academic background and has framed his leadership in terms of “servant leadership, collaboration, and evidence-based decision-making.”

EPA’s institutional position parallels EBC and ENA within the federal state media architecture: all three are public enterprises with parliamentary accountability, all three are nominally autonomous but with leadership directly appointed through executive nomination, and all three operate under the institutional supervision of the Government Communication Service. The current ruling formation is the Prosperity Party, which succeeded the EPRDF in December 2019.

Source of funding and budget

EPA combines direct government subsidy with self-generated income from newspaper circulation, advertising, government printing contracts, and subscription services. According to the agency’s own self-description, EPA “runs its own business affairs through own-generated incomes”, reflecting a partial commercial mandate not present at ENA, but the federal subsidy remains the dominant funding source. No audited financial reports are publicly available, and detailed budget breakdowns are not disclosed. Circulation figures for EPA’s flagship publications are modest by international standards: Addis Zemen approximately 19,000 daily, Ethiopian Herald approximately 10,000 daily, Berissa 3,000 weekly, and Al-Alem 2,500 weekly. Distribution constraints, particularly outside Addis Ababa and the major regional capitals, have been a longstanding institutional limitation. Specific 2024–25 and 2025–26 subsidy figures have not been publicly disclosed at outlet level.

Editorial independence

EPA does not exhibit meaningful editorial independence in the conventional sense. The agency’s flagship publications, Addis Zemen and Ethiopian Herald, have functioned as official state press organs since their establishment under Emperor Haile Selassie’s modernisation programme in the early 1940s. Editorial direction has consistently aligned with the federal government’s policy positions across successive regimes: the imperial period, the Derg military government (1974–1991), the EPRDF era (1991–2019), and the current Prosperity Party administration. Ethiopian state media outlets are required to “follow the ruling party’s narrative; content that contradicts that narrative is removed,” per the Freedom House 2025 country report, and EPA’s publications are regularly cited as illustrative of this institutional positioning.

Through 2025–2026, EPA’s coverage has been dominated by federal-government themes consistent with state media positioning: the September 2025 inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the run-up to the June 1, 2026 general elections scheduled by the National Election Board of Ethiopia, the rollout of the Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy and its successor Digital Ethiopia 2030, the MESOB digital-government platform launch, and the deteriorating Eritrea–Ethiopia relationship. Critical coverage of the federal government, opposition political voices (notably Oromo Federalist Congress, Tigray People’s Liberation Front and Amhara Fano-aligned positions), the ongoing Amhara conflict, and human rights concerns flagged by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and international observers are absent from EPA publications. There is no internal ombudsman, no published editorial code, and no independent oversight mechanism.

CEO Mesafint Tefera has framed EPA’s institutional mission since 2024 in terms of “revitalisation”, modernising platforms, expanding to new audiences (notably children and youth, with the launch of Bilatenat and Naa’otaa), and digitising the historical archive, rather than reform of editorial independence. The agency’s stated ambition is to “preserve its archival integrity while evolving into a vibrant, youth-focused, and digitally agile media institution.”

AI and digital policy

EPA operates a primary digital portal at press.et with editions for Ethiopian Herald and Addis Zemen. CEO Mesafint Tefera has prioritised digital expansion as a core element of EPA’s “revitalisation” strategy: a redesigned website, the development of a mobile application, and a multi-year project to digitise the agency’s archive of decades of publications documenting Ethiopia’s history. EPA is an active social-media publisher across Facebook, X/Twitter and Telegram. No formal AI policy, content-provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or disclosure framework for AI-generated content has been published. There is no public statement on synthetic-media disclosure, automated translation between EPA’s four print languages (Amharic, English, Afaan Oromo, Arabic), or AI use in editorial workflows. The Ethiopian Media Authority has not issued sector-wide AI guidance as of April 2026. Despite EPA’s 80-plus-year archival legacy and the digitisation programme underway, there is no published commitment to access or open-data principles for the historical archive.

April 2026