ATLANTA — The state agency that oversees services for people with mental illness, developmental disabilities and addictive diseases is launching a new website to deliver news about the agency directly to the public.

The new site, http://news.dbhdd.georgia.gov, offers features and interviews in addition to press releases, editorials and multimedia released by the department through other channels. The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities plans to update the page regularly to provide a stream of news to anyone interested in following the agency’s activities.

“Today any organization can become its own news outlet through electronic media,” said DBHDD Communications Director Tom Wilson. “We’re employing all of the traditional tools to reach the public and adding to them new ones like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. This new website brings all of that together with added content created specially for it.”