On February 16 (New Style February 28), 1898, the BTA put out its first news bulletin, hand-written in person by the agency’s recently appointed first director, Oskar Iskander, who was a Doctor of philosophy, editor and publisher. The four-page bulletin contained seven dispatches datelined from Vienna, Athens and Constantinople, the BTA informed. The news was about the illness of H.R.H. Princess Clementine, the assassination attempt on King George I of Greece and the ratification of a commercial agreement between Bulgaria and Turkiye. The news bulletin ended with an information about the stock exchange prices of wheat, corn and oats in Vienna, Budapest and Marseilles.

The BTA, which was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked all the newspaper editorial offices in the Principality of Bulgaria to headline their telegrams  "Telegrams of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency", which indicated their origin.