Kyōdō Tsūshinsha

▪ Japanese news agency

Japanese“Cooperative News Agency”

      national nonprofit news agency founded in November 1945 to replace the pre-World War II Dōmei Tsūshinsha (“Federated News Agency”), which had served as the official news service of the Japanese (Japan) government since 1936. Despite competition from the beginning with the Jiji news agency, formed by Dōmei employees who did not join Kyōdō, the latter gradually gained prestige among Japan's newspapers, in part by introducing technological innovations such as a teletype system for the transmission of kanji (Japanese: “Chinese characters”). Kyōdō's American subsidiary, Kyōdō News International, Inc., was created in 1982 in New York City. By the early 21st century, the agency had representatives in many major world cities and employed more than 1,000 journalists, photographers, foreign correspondents, and stringers.

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