Summary

The Press and Information Agency (API), beside the Polish Press Agency (PAP), Workers' Information Agency (AR) and Polish Agency "Interpress", was one of the main and durable press agencies in the People's Republic of Poland (PRL). The institution in question was established in Lublin in 1944 as the Press-Information Agency. It had a status of a non-party agency created in order to serve the ,,Czytelnik" press. The development of API was seriously limited in the Stalinist period due to decisions of the central institutions in charge of creating a model of information policy of the State. In 1948 a decision was made to liquidate the API foreign information services, and a year later its name was changed into the Publishing-Information Agency, which meant that it was to prepare information services.
After internal reorganization from the end of 1956 to 1967, API provided two kinds of services to Polish press: the morning service for the "Czytelnik" newspapers and evening services for so-called "Express" newspapers. The Agency also published the ..Bulletin for Poles Abroad". In 1967 the Publishing-Information Agency was incorporated into the Workers' Information Agency (AR). Although it lost its independence, it managed to preserve a distinct organizational structure, providing information to nonparty morning and evening newspapers. API ceased to exist after the liquidation of the Workers' Information Agency, which occurred in the end of 1972. Its activity was taken by PA "Interpress".