site.btaUPDATED January 27, 1898: Prince Ferdinand Decrees Bulgarian News Agency's Establishment

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) was established by Order No. 28, issued by Prince Ferdinand I on January 27 (Old Style)/February 8 (New Style) 1898, as "Bulgarska Telegrafna Agentsiya" [Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, acronym: B.T.A.], a designation reflecting the hardware of the day. When set up, the Agency was part of the Department of Press and Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Worship. BTA is thus one of Europe's oldest national news-gathering and distributing operations, as only the great powers had set up news agencies of their own earlier.

Its function was to deliver wire reports on events abroad. Unlike most news agencies at that time, which were private businesses, BTA was a government institution, modelled on the St Petersburg Telegraph Agency, and even in the first year of its existence received a budget allocation of 20,000 gold leva.

By the same Order, journalist Oskar Iskender PhD was appointed the first BTA director, effective February 1/13, 1989, with an annual salary of BGN 5,580. He held the position until June 23/July 5, 1898. On February 16/28, 1898, BTA issued its first news bulletin, handwritten personally by Iskender. It consisted of three pages with six dispatches datelined from Vienna, Athens and Constantinople, covering developments in the Balkan countries and commodity exchange price fluctuations. The top story was an update on the deteriorated health condition of Princess Clémentine, Prince Ferdinand I’s mother. Copies of the bulletin were delivered by hand to each of the six subscribers: government institutions, Sofia's newspapers and foreign diplomatic agencies. BTA celebrates its birthday on February 16 - the anniversary of its first bulletin.

Before heading BTA, Iskender (?–1907) published and edited newspapers, including the French-language weekly La Bulgarie (1882-1884 and 1888-1897).

At the beginning, BTA was staffed by one director and one clerk. The bulletins were handwritten by a calligrapher and then mimeographed on letterhead stationery. The agency used messages telegraphed in Morse code to Sofia's General Post Office. The messages were transcribed and published in bulletins with one-day lag.

Iskender established relations with the Reuters Telegram Company and Agence Havas, two of the worldwide wire services of the day, and with the German agency Wolffs Telegraphisches Buereau, thus ensuring an increasing inflow of international news. 

Following is a translation of the announcement on Iskender's appointment as promulgated in the State Gazette No. 41 of February 24/March 8, 1898, page 3: 

"By Order under No. 28 of the 27th January of this year, effective 1st February of this year, Oskar Iskender was appointed director of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency in Sofia, with an annual salary of 5,580 leva."