Deputy General Director of Vietnam News Agency Vu Viet Trang (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Since its establishment in 1961, theOrganisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) has carried out cooperationin several aspects, and its members have constantly made adjustments to alignitself with journalism development trends, said Deputy General Director ofVietnam News Agency (VNA) Vu Viet Trang.
She made the statement during an interview ahead of the 44thExecutive Board Meeting of OANA, to be held in Hanoi from April 18-20.
Trang, who is also standing deputy head of the meeting’sorganising board, said that during the 43rd meeting in Tehran in September2018, VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi proposed holding the 44th meeting inVietnam. The proposal was supported by the OANA Executive Board.
Upon returning home, the VNA general director instructed theestablishment of the meeting’s organising board with four sub-committees led byVNA deputy general directors in mid-December 2018. Over the past four months, theVNA has made active preparations in terms of logistics, agenda, communications,and technology with a view to making the event a success.
Thanks to the effective support of Azerbaijan State NewsAgency in its capacity as OANA Chair, members of the OANA executive board, theForeign Ministry, Hanoi city, the northern province of Quang Ninh, and FLCgroup, preparations for the meeting have mostly been completed.
According to the deputy general director, OANA has launchedjoint work across information exchange, training, experience sharing, editingstandards, and ethics of journalists. In line with its regulations, OANA holdsannual executive board meetings and triennial General Assembly meetings.
During the executive board meetings, delegates will discuss experiencein dealing with issues faced by contemporary press, the possibility ofcooperation with press organisations in other regions, and the establishment ofnew cooperation mechanisms. Therefore, the agenda of those meetings should bothfollow the previous one and introduce new things.
For example, the issue of artificial intelligence (AI) hasbeen tabled for discussion since the 40th executive board’s meeting and will belooked into during the 44th meeting.
Another item on the upcoming meeting is fake news, which hasbeen mentioned for several recent meetings. At the 44th meeting,leaders of news agencies will look into measures and tools to verifyinformation amid the prevalence of fake news at present, she said, adding thatit was proposed by VNA and VNA Deputy General Director Le Quoc Minh will chaira session on the issue.
Another session on strategies to adapt to the switch amongstmedia consumers to videos and YouTube clips will be also held.
Asked about the umbrella theme “For a professional andinnovative journalism” for the 44th meeting, Trang said with over 4billion Internet users out of a 7.7 billion world population, the majority ofthe public now access information through the internet, and at the same time,they are also suppliers of news online so there will be a competition betweennews agencies and their traditional clients.
In order to win the race, news agencies need to maintainprofessionalism with timely coverage of correct and objective news verified bycompetent authorities, which is a difference between genuine press products andunverified information and personal opinions online.
Meanwhile, an innovative journalism will attract the public.News agencies, including VNA recently adopted technology to produce new mediaproducts such as long-form articles that combine text, photos, audio and videoclips.
Trang said the above explained the reason for VNA’sselection of the meeting’s main theme. –VNA
VNA
