TASS TASS Russian News Agency TASS (), abbr. TASS () is a major news agency in Russia, founded in 1904. TASS is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide, along with Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP). TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia. Headquartered in Moscow, TASS has 70 offices in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as 68 bureaus around the world. The TASS name comes from the former Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (, "Tyelyegrafnoye
TASS TV and radio stations and over a thousand foreign media outlets. The news agency ran one of the biggest networks of correspondents in the world – 682 offices in the country and 94 bureaus abroad, with reporters in 110 countries. At its peak it employed nearly 5000 people including close to 2,000 journalists and photo correspondents. TASS was organized with five Main Editorial Boards for Union Information, Foreign Information, Socialist Countries, Information for Foreign Countries, Photo information, supplemented by a Main Directorate of Communications. In 1961 Ria Novosti was created to supplement TASS, mainly in foreign reporting and human-interest stories.