President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a speech at the opening ceremony of the 5th News Agencies World Congress and the 16th General Assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) Azerbaijan on Wednesday.
In addition to the 5th News Agencies World Congress and the 16th General Assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), Azerbaijan is also hosting the 22nd session of the Council of CIS Heads of News Agencies November 16.
Iran is being represented by Mehr News Agency (MNA) and Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) at the international event.
The 5th News Agencies World Congress stated work under the slogan of ‘New Challenges for News Agencies’. The Congress included several sessions, including ‘The future of news consumption’, ‘News agencies – challenges and opportunities of new technologies and social media’, ‘News agency innovation’, ‘Training journalists for a multi-media future’, ‘Protecting the journalists’ mission: freedom, access, safety and conflict zones’.
The event also deals with several problems facing journalism, which is now in experiencing rapid transformation, and forms of cooperation between news agencies and different social media platforms.
Speakers at the sessions include presidents of the News Agencies World Congress, OANA, EANA, FANA, managers of Associated Press, Reuters, Xinhua, Anadolu Agency, TASS, Agence France-Press, Press Association, EFE, Yonhap, Kyodo, TT, SPA, BTA, AAP, IRNA, DPA, Notimex, ATPE and other leading news agencies, Los Angeles Times newspaper, Al Arabiya television channel, and experts from Tripod Advisors, News Corp, PwC, Axel Springer, Stibo Accelerator media companies.
The Congress will see presentation of a photo album featuring nearly 600 photographs by the participating agencies in ‘News’, ‘Festivities’ and ‘Sport’ categories. The photo album was published through partnership between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Baku Media Center.
The Congress will also feature the signing of several agreements, election to executive bodies of the Congress, and the adoption of a Declaration.
An initiative of UNESCO, the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies was founded in 1961 with the aim of expanding news exchange among regional news agencies. OANA’s members include 44 news agencies from 35 countries. Having joined OANA in 2004, AZERTAC has been elected a member of its Executive Board for three times. At the 15th General Assembly held in Moscow in 2013, AZERTAC was elected – by secret ballot – as president of the organization for 2016-2019.
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