Hina

What is Hina?

Hina is the Hrvatska izvještajna novinska agencija, the Croatian news agency. Article 1 of the Zakon o Hrvatskoj izvještajnoj novinskoj agenciji provides that “Hrvatska izvještajna novinska agencija je pravna osoba koja ima status javne ustanove” — a legal person with the status of a public institution — and that “osnivač javne ustanove Hrvatska izvještajna novinska agencija je Republika Hrvatska”, the founder being the Republic of Croatia. The consolidated text is based on Narodne novine 96/01 and entered into force on 15 November 2001.^[1]

Its own statute, adopted by the Managing Board on 3 July 2002 under Article 14 of the Act and in force from 17 July 2002, repeats the legal form in Article 1, describes the agency in Article 2 as “javno glasilo s programskim sadržajima nacionalne novinske agencije” — a public medium with the programme content of a national news agency — and gives the seat in Article 5 as “sjedište Hine je u Zagrebu, Marulićev trg 16”.^[2]

The description of Hina as a public service needs the Act's own limiting wording. Article 3 defines the activity as the collection and dissemination of factual and objective news-agency information about events; Article 4 then provides that “djelatnost iz članka 3. ovoga Zakona Hina obavlja kao javnu službu samo u slučajevima elementarnih nepogoda, epidemija, izvanrednog ili ratnog stanja” — as a public service only in cases of natural disasters, epidemics, a state of emergency or war.^[1]

What does Hina cover?

Hina lists its own services as a general news service, a business and financial service, photo and video services, a short-news service, the OTS original-text service for press releases, an events-announcement service and an English-language service.^[3]

Sport is one of its sections. The Sport rubric was carrying items on the Croatian first division, Formula 1, the Vuelta and the Bundesliga when it was checked for this page.^[4] The agency's copy therefore reaches Croatian outlets that do not staff every event themselves, which is the structural role of a wire in a market this size.

How large is Hina's audience?

A wire's reach is not measured in viewers, and no audited measure of Hina's distribution could be retrieved for this page. What the agency publishes about itself is output rather than audience: it states a daily volume of more than 200 news reports, more than 500 photographs and 40 OTS originals.^[3] Those are the agency's own figures.

Croatia's recognised web-audience currency was consolidated only recently: the Hrvatska udruga digitalnih izdavača announced on 15 July 2024 that it had selected Ipsos's DotMetrics as the standardised measurement provider for Croatian portals under an agreement effective from 1 January 2025.^[5] No DotMetrics figure for hina.hr could be retrieved, and traffic estimators are not audited measurement, so none is given.

Since when has Hina existed?

Hina's own about page is headed “HINA – od 1990.” and states that the agency was founded in 1990, describing that founding as an expression of Croatia's information sovereignty.^[3] That is the agency's account of itself; no instrument of 1990 was retrieved for this page.

The datable instruments are later. The Act establishing the agency in its present form is based on Narodne novine 96/01 and entered into force on 15 November 2001,^[1] and the statute made under Article 14 of that Act was adopted on 3 July 2002 and entered into force on 17 July 2002.^[2] Founding, statutory establishment and the adoption of a statute are three different dates and they are kept apart here.

Why does Hina matter in Croatia's sport?

Because it is the one newsroom in the country whose sport copy is written to be republished by others, and because its ownership is not in doubt: the Act names the Republic of Croatia as founder and gives the agency the status of a public institution.^[1] Its daily sport file runs alongside the general service.^[4]

State founding is also what the monitoring bodies examine. The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom's Media Pluralism Monitor for Croatia, 2026 edition, scores the country at 53 per cent overall with Political Independence at 51 per cent, and states that “governance structures of HRT and HINA, including parliamentary appointment procedures, continue to raise concerns about political influence.”^[6] The Euromedia Ownership Monitor's Croatia report, 2025 edition, records that “ownership records are often incomplete or outdated, particularly for large corporate groups, and they seldom reveal the actual balance of power behind media companies”, and that “while Croatia has advanced in formal transparency, the foundations of independent journalism remain fragile.”^[7] Both are quoted as those bodies' own findings.