site.btaUPDATED BTA Director General Calls for Media Cooperation Without Thinking about Money at MINDS International Forum

Addressing participants at the 39th MINDS International Media Innovation Conference, which opened earlier Thursday at the Hotel Quirinal Palace in Rome, Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev said: “In the name of real news, let us shake hands and cooperate with hands out of our pockets, getting money out of our minds."

In front of some 150 delegates, Valchev presented BTA’s cooperation with other national news agencies and highlighted the BTA Paraleli [Parallels] news service, which features content from its partner agencies. He took part in an afternoon session alongside representatives of the Dutch ANP, Belgian Belga, Japan’s Kyodo News, Reuters, Germany’s DPA, and Turkiye’s Anadolu Agency.

On Thursday morning, before the official opening of the conference, Pope Leo XIV received the participants in a private audience in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, where he gave a speech dedicated to the media. The visit to the Pope was organized by MINDS as part of its 39th meeting.

The reason for Vachev's message to news agencies to shake hands and cooperate without thinking about money in the name of real news was his story that before Thursday's meeting with the Pope, the BTA Director General had participated in three audiences with the previous three popes - John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. Francis said that, according to his grandmother, the devil enters a man through the pocket. And God enters a man through handshake, as in Michelangelo's fresco "The Creation of Adam" in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Valchev said that BTA provides Bulgarian media with international news through contracts with five global agencies and partnership and free exchange agreements with 50 news agencies across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. The agency has partnership agreements with the national news agencies of 23 European countries, 16 of which are EU members, including Germany’s DPA and France’s AFP.

BTA currently maintains cooperation agreements with 16 MINDS member agencies, including Anadolu Agency (Turkiye), ANP (Netherlands), AMNA (Greece), ANSA (Italy), AFP (France), Associated Press, APA (Austria), Belga (Belgium), DPA (Germany), EFE (Spain), Kyodo News (Japan), LETA (Latvia), LUSA (Portugal), PAP (Poland), PTI (India), and Reuters.

BTA is represented at the audience and the MINDS International Conference by Director General Kiril Valchev, Deputy Director General Evgenia Drumeva, Tsvetomira Marinova, Head of the Economic News Directorate, Desislava Sevova, Head of Archives and Reference, and Tsvetanka Paunova, Head of Legal Department.

MINDS International holds such conferences for its 26 member agencies twice a year, bringing together executives and professionals from editorial, strategy, technology, product, and sales divisions. The meetings aim to facilitate idea exchange, best practices, and potential collaboration across various areas.

Founded in 2004, MINDS International is a global network of leading news agencies dedicated to cooperation in digital information services.

In April 2022, BTA became the 23rd member of MINDS, joining the ranks of Reuters, AFP, AP, among other major international news agencies.