At BBA, Journalism is not just a profession, it is a tradition |
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When
the late Kadri Kayabal, the founder of BBA, began his career in journalism, news
dispatches were either dictated on barely audible telephone lines or sent by telegraphic
dispatches using a special language called “cablese” to keep the number of words
used down. “uninationsgensec nicosiawarding exnewyork prointercommunal talks,”
would be how a typical news dispatch might read, informing the newsrooms that the United
Nations Secretary General was leaving New York to attend talks between the two communities
in Cyprus. Since the days of Kadri Kayabal, BBA has passed through the various phases of teleprinters, telephoto machines, and multiplex landlines to arrive at digital satellite communications. The tools of the profession also changed from silent 16 mm film cameras to sound-on-film CP 16s and then U-matic videos to analogue Betacams and lately to digital cameras. In 1950 Kadri Kayabal founded Turkey's first privately-owned wire and news picture service. It was this news organization that distributed the first Telephoto service in Turkey in 1963. By the early 1970s, the agency was linked to United Press International’s (UPI) worldwide multiplex system, serving subscribers in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. By 1973 the agency launched its own television department, providing news footage from Turkey and the Middle East for international broadcasters such as ABC News, CBS and ITN. BBA was responsible for many memorable pictures of history-making events, They included Turkish paratroopers landing on Cyprus in 1974, Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan in 1980, PLO hijackings at the Beirut airport in 1985, the first squadron of U.S. fighter planes taking off from the Incirlik airbase, in southern Turkey, to bomb Saddam Hussein's Baghdad in 1990. We also covered the plight of thousands of Kurdish refugees who crossed the mountainous border into Turkey escaping from Saddam’s wrath the next year. In 1996 BBA became the first television agency to begin operating uplink equipment with direct access to international communications satellites, a practice so far reserved exclusively by the state-owned Turkish Radio and Television Corp. (TRT). BBA is now the main TV News Production service provider in Turkey and surrounding regions. One of our biggest clients is the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), a non-profit organization made up of the public service broadcasters in Europe. We also service the major international broadcasters in Europe, America and Asia by providing SNG services to the entire international television media. BBA’s history, covering more than half a century, makes journalism not just a profession but also a tradition for all of us. |
