Anadolu Agency

Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Ajansı, AA) is an Ankara-based Turkish news agency founded on 6 April 1920, during the War of Independence. It became a joint-stock company in 1925 and supplies news, photographs, video and other content to media and institutional subscribers. In June 2026, its chief executive reported news and content work in 137 countries.

Media assets

News agency: Anadolu Agency and aa.com.tr. AA publishes in 13 written languages; its reported total of 14 includes Turkish Sign Language, added in March 2026 as a social media channel.

Digital platforms: Anadolu Images, for licensing photographs and video; AA Finance; and the AA Energy Terminal.

Ownership and governance

AA’s masthead lists the Ministry of Treasury and Finance as holding 47.75 percent of its shares, AA itself 50.07 percent, and 47 individual shareholders 2.19 percent. The Treasury also has a statutory usufruct right over the shares acquired by AA, according to Law No. 57.

Serdar Karagöz has chaired the board and served as general manager since 7 April 2021. The other four directors listed on the masthead are Yusuf Özkır, İsmail Çağlar, Büşra Tosun Durmuş and Mustafa Akış. Yusuf Özhan is deputy general manager and editor-in-chief.

Law No. 57, amended in 2014, establishes the Treasury’s usufruct rights and exempts AA from several public-sector laws, including public procurement and Court of Accounts legislation. Its relationship with the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications is governed by Presidential Decree No. 14, as amended in 2019 and subsequently limited by the Constitutional Court.

Source of funding and budget

State funding is AA’s principal source of support. In its December 2020 ruling, the Constitutional Court stated that the large majority of AA’s income came from an allocation within the Directorate of Communications’ budget. The decree authorises contracts with AA for up to five years, within the annual appropriation, and retains the Directorate’s budget-audit power. Journalists and experts interviewed for SMM in May 2024 and March 2025 also identified state subsidies as the agency’s main funding source. AA additionally earns subscription and content-licensing income.

Editorial independence

Article 133 of the Constitution protects the autonomy and impartiality of publicly supported news agencies. In its ruling of 30 December 2020, published on 24 February 2021, the Constitutional Court annulled provisions allowing the Directorate to oversee AA’s activities, organisation and human resources, set the audit procedures, and determine management-appointment arrangements through its contract with AA.

These legal safeguards coexist with government influence over the agency’s editorial direction. Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025 explicitly described AA as subject to government control; its 2026 report called the agency government-aligned. In April 2026, Karagöz said AA had to form part of the communication strategy whose framework and vision were determined by the Directorate.

AA’s Turkish publication principles commit it to impartial, objective and fair reporting. Its masthead names Yusuf Selman İnanç as press ombudsman, and articles direct readers to an email channel for errors and complaints. No published rules guaranteeing the ombudsman’s independence from management or the controlling state shareholder were identified.

AI and digital policy

AA published its ten-point Guide to the Ethical Use of AI in Media on 10 February 2024. Intended as a framework for AA and other media organisations, it calls for human editors to check AI-generated views, verification against misinformation, protection of privacy and copyright, and clear labelling of AI-generated content and its sources.

AA has also used automated news production. In April 2024, its technology and innovation director, Yakup Şıvka, said about 4,000 reports based on ballot-box data had been sent to subscribers on local-election night without reporters or editors handling them, according to İşçi Haber. AA was subsequently named as a partner in T3 AI, whose beta was launched in July 2025.

Classification rationale

SMM retains the SC classification because AA is predominantly state-funded, has state-controlled governance and follows a government-directed editorial line, despite its constitutional guarantees of autonomy and impartiality.

October 2026