Russian news agency Itar-Tass returns to Soviet-era name

One of Russia’s largest state-run news agencies, Itar-Tass, is to return to its Soviet-era name of TASS as part of a rebrand that coincides with the organisation’s 110th anniversary. Sergei Mikhailov, director general of Itar-Tass, announced the decision to staff on Monday, attributing the change to the desire “to return our agency to its historical, world-renowned name”.

Mikhailov added: “The new brand of Russia’s oldest news agency aims to become a symbol of professionalism, enthusiasm, willingness to progress, preserve and develop the agency’s best traditions. It’s clear that in the media a vast amount of information is constantly being produced from multiple sources, which often don’t provide a complete and, most importantly, truthful, picture of what is happening. Therefore, one of our main tasks will be to be a source of information (at least relating to Russia) which people can trust.”

Founded as the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) in 1925, the agency was responsible for all news content for television, radio and print media. A year after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, former president Boris Yeltsin signed a decree to have the news agency renamed Itar-Tass.