Montsame

Montsame is Mongolia’s national news agency and the country’s oldest continuously operating news organisation, founded in 1921 as the Mongolian telegraphic agency MONTA. The present MONTSAME name dates from 1957. It remains state-owned. Government Resolution No. 400 of 31 December 2021 transferred the agency to the jurisdiction of the Office of the President of Mongolia with effect from 1 January 2022, ordering its staff and property transferred to that office.

Media assets

News agency: the Montsame wire and news site, distributing material in Mongolian including traditional Mongolian script, English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and, since 8 December 2025, Korean

Newspapers: five weeklies, comprising Khumuun Bichig in traditional Mongolian script, Novosti Mongolii in Russian, Menggu Xiaoxibao in Chinese, Mongoru Tsushin in Japanese and The Mongol Messenger in English

Magazine: Mongolia Today, a quarterly in English

Ownership and governance

Montsame is a state-owned agency attached to the office of the head of state. Government Resolution No. 400, adopted on 31 December 2021 and signed by Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene, transferred it to the jurisdiction of the Office of the President with effect from 1 January 2022 and directed that its existing staffing and property be transferred to that office. Its organisational rules were revised by Order No. 168 of 11 November 2022.

Khurelee Enkh-Orshikh was appointed Director-General on 20 June 2025, moving directly from the post of Director of the Policy Implementation Department of the Office of the President. Montsame identified him as Director-General in January 2026. His predecessor, Sodontogos Erdenetsogt, had been appointed in November 2022, also by the presidential office.

That succession followed a public dispute. In June 2025 the Mongolian Journalists’ Union called on the Office of the President to intervene after Montsame employees alleged management interference with editorial independence, obstruction of journalists’ professional work and workplace pressure. The union reported that 84 per cent of agency employees had signed the demand and that more than 50 staff had left during the previous Director-General’s tenure. She left the post that month.

The National Audit Office provides external financial oversight, and its 2024 audit criticised the agency for failing to update its state registration certificate to reflect the revised organisational rules. State Media Monitor identified no independent media-governance body or appointing mechanism insulated from the Office of the President.

Source of funding and budget

Audited financial information is published. The Mongolian National Audit Office issues an annual report on Montsame’s financial statements and budget execution, and the 2024 audit provides direct evidence of the agency’s funding structure.

The budget execution table records total actual financing sources of MNT 4.633 billion in 2024, of which MNT 4.412 billion came from the state budget and MNT 221.1 million from the agency’s own operating revenue. State budget financing therefore accounted for approximately 95.2 per cent of the total, and own-source revenue for approximately 4.8 per cent.

The audited statement of financial results presents the position on a different accounting basis but points the same way, recording operating income of approximately MNT 5.735 billion including approximately MNT 5.389 billion from the central state budget.

Montsame does generate own-source revenue, but it accounted for less than 5 per cent of budget execution financing in 2024. Interviews conducted for State Media Monitor in May 2023, June 2024 and May 2025 described operations underwritten by national budget allocations, consistent with the audited figures.

Editorial independence

The legal history is the most revealing element of this profile. Article 4 of Mongolia’s 1998 Media Freedom Law prohibits state bodies from having media under their control, and Article 3 prohibits state censorship of media content. Parliament’s Resolution No. 103 of 28 August 1998, adopted to implement the law, named Montsame directly: it ordered that the Radio and Television Administration and Montsame be abolished in their capacity as government regulatory agencies and reorganised as national public media organisations, and instructed that governance structures, composition and rules be prepared for the new bodies.

That reorganisation was completed for one and not the other. MNB received a dedicated public service broadcasting statute in 2005 establishing a National Council, editorial guarantees and source protection. Montsame acquired no equivalent independence structure and was instead placed, in 2022, beneath the Office of the President.

Montsame has no dedicated statutory guarantee of editorial independence or governance structure insulated from the state comparable with that of MNB. It remains subject to the general anti-censorship protections of the 1998 Media Freedom Law. Reporters Without Borders characterises the agency’s output as pro-government and records that it remains state-owned despite the 1998 law’s prohibition on government ownership of publicly financed outlets promoting its activities.

AI and digital policy

State Media Monitor identified no publicly available Montsame editorial policy governing generative artificial intelligence, mandatory human verification, model provenance or disclosure of AI-assisted material to audiences, and could not establish the extent of adoption from public sources.

State Media Monitor identified no generally applicable Mongolian statutory requirement obliging news organisations to label AI-generated content. A narrower election-specific regulation requires online election advertising and election-related audiovisual material created using AI to be visibly identified as AI-generated.

Classification rationale

Montsame remains classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

It is state-owned and directly state-governed. Government Resolution No. 400 placed the agency under the Office of the President from 1 January 2022, with staff and property transferred accordingly. The current Director-General moved directly from heading that office’s Policy Implementation Department to heading Montsame. State Media Monitor identified no independent media-governance body or appointing mechanism insulated from the presidential administration.

It is predominantly state-funded, and this is now established by audited accounts rather than interview evidence. The National Audit Office’s 2024 report records state budget financing at approximately 95.2 per cent of Montsame’s actual financing sources, with own-source revenue at approximately 4.8 per cent.

Evidence indicates substantial state influence over its editorial agenda. Reporters Without Borders characterises the output as pro-government. In June 2025 the Mongolian Journalists’ Union reported that 84 per cent of the agency’s employees had signed a demand alleging management interference with editorial independence and obstruction of journalists’ work. Combined with the agency’s placement under the presidential administration, that is sufficient for the editorial condition, though State Media Monitor identified no documentary evidence of officials issuing day-to-day editorial instructions.

The historical contrast is instructive. In 1998 Parliament explicitly resolved that Montsame should cease to function as a government agency and become a national public media organisation. More than two decades later it was instead formally placed under the Office of the President.

August 2026