On the sidelines of the 18th Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies General Assembly, the Director of International Cooperation of Russia's Sputnik News Agency Vasily Pushkov in an interview with Mehr correspondent answered some questions.
One of the issues that these days the media are dealing with is the issue of fake news. In your opinion what is the role of holding such international meetings in tackling the issue and clarification of public opinion?
Well, basically there are different approaches to fake news and different practices of combating fake news right now in the world but it is one thing from the point of view of the public, from the point of view of the audience. Another thing is from the point of view of journalists. From the point of view of a journalist, combating fake news is basically the number one task right now and the best way to do that is by checking and double-checking your sources. Now for this, you really have to surround yourself not only with the best journalists but with the best news partners. The partners that your trust, the partners that you know are established professional journalists, and basically here in this room we have gathered the best and the brightest minds in the media of the largest continent in the world. So this is exactly where the exchange of news, the exchange between partners, and the media trust are being strengthened and carried on.
As you know these days the western media are trying to portray Iran as insecure. How did you evaluate the security situation in Iran as well as the hospitality of the Iranian people?
Yes, they do. But it is not really an Iranian problem. Basically, at this point, the western media are trying to portray any country of the world outside the western world as some far region with huge complicated problems, and so on. Their position is understandable because they have a lot of problems in their part of the world and they just, by comparison, to transfer to their audience the image of the rest of the world is a much worse place to live. Basically, these complaints that we hear from our Iranian colleagues we hear from basically every other region of the world from China to Brazil and so on. it's not really a problem if you think about it. it has been a problem maybe a decade ago but right now we have established a direct flow of using information between us directly and we can paint a real picture by ourselves so it's not a problem anymore.
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