News eventually the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS). The Chinese Communist Party created its news agency, the Red China News Agency, in 1931; its primary responsibilities were the "Red China" newspaper and the internal "Reference News". In 1937, the Party renamed the agency "Xinhua", New China. Xinhua became the official news agency of the People's Republic of China in 1949. These agencies touted their ability to distill events into "minute globules of news", 20–30 word summaries which conveyed the essence of new developments. Unlike newspapers, and contrary to the sentiments of some of their reporters, the agencies sought to
TASS adopted a resolution ""On approval of the Charter of the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia"", under which it operates as a central government news agency. The TASS acronym was, by this point, well-recognized around the world and so was retained after being redefined as the "Telegraph agency of communication and messages" (). The agency as a whole was referred to as "ITAR-TASS". In September 2014 the agency regained its former name as "Russian News Agency TASS". TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia. Headquartered in Moscow, TASS has 70 offices in Russia