Alliance News Network

Founded during the early decades of human space expansion, the Alliance News Network was originally a low-profile news organization known mostly for a series of exposés on the First Contact War. With a focus on galaxy-wide reporting, the ANN opened bureaus on planets across known space, winning a few awards for excellence and earning a multi-species audience.

The Alliance News Network has never been funded by the Systems Alliance, despite what its name might imply. This led to regular confusion among those not in the know, although the network's recent high-profile sale to a media conglomerate made the ownership structure structure clearer.

The new management has opted for a more sensational approach. This is particularly obvious from changes to its roster of reporters, with a few of the network's luminaries retiring or joining other news organizations. The network's increasingly lurid programming has gained wide attention as well as sorely-needed ratings--all the proof that management needed to validate its course. Nonetheless, ANN insists that integrity and credibility are inviolable standards in the newsroom.

Battlespace is among ANN's highest rated programs, known for a particularly titillating breed of reporting. Among the show's most noteworthy segments are Diana Allers's dispatches from the front lines. The network calls her reports "gritty and realistic," but she has been criticized for her unabashed focus on the violence of war. Even critics of Allers agree, however, that despite her often graphic visuals, the facts she reports are just that--facts.