Germany’s leading news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), is to create 20 new jobs in Cork by the end of this year.
The company will base its English-speaking news service’s editing operation for all its international markets in Cork. The operation, supported by IDA Ireland, will be known as dpa News International Limited and will be located at a Cork City centre location.
The jobs created will be for native English speaking journalists or university graduates, with a good knowledge of German.
The Tánaiste Ms Harney described the dpa’s decision as "an excellent example of the type of investment which the Government’s and IDA Ireland’s strategies are designed to attract – a high quality international services company providing skilled employment opportunities for graduates."
The Cork operation in producing dpa’s international service in English will gather reports from dpa bureau in Germany and in more than 100 other countries.
Cork will be the service’s central editing desk, co-operating with the regional sub-desks in Washington DC and Bangkok.
It will also be responsible for dpa’s online service in English. This service is a news product that covers topics from world politics to business, sports and entertainment, combining text, pictures and graphics.
The service is provided to close to 200 subscribers, which include newspapers, news agencies, radio and television stations, portals, syndicators and databases, as well as the corporate market, across the world. The service reaches thousands of end clients and many millions of readers every day.
The establishment of the editing desk in Cork is part of dpa’s strategy to concentrate on four major languages for its international operations – English, Spanish, Arabic and German and to produce these services in the native linguistic territories. Cork being the location for the English service, Spanish will be based in Madrid and Buenos Aires, Arabic in Nicosia and Cairo and German in Hamburg and Berlin.
Dpa, headquartered in Hamburg, began operations in 1949 and is a limited company with almost 200 shareholders, which include newspaper and magazine publishers, publishing houses and public and private broadcasters. It employs 1,100 people, plus hundreds of stringers and freelancers, in over 100 countries.