Saturday 14 February 2015

Reps Warm Up To Idea Of OANA Community


A number of Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) officials have backed the idea of an OANA community towards enhancing inter-agency collaborative efforts to face various challenges, especially in the current borderless world.
It was mooted by Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) general manager Datuk Zulkefli Salleh when addressing the the 38th OANA Executive Board Meeting in Kuala Lumpur today.
In supporting the notion of an OANA community, Iran's Mehr News Agency international relations director Hamidrez Gholamzadah said OANA should have its own social media or virtual community platforms to reach out directly to audiences.
This social media community, he said, would complement the current OANA website.
"Everyone now likes to get news and information in a speedy manner. So the future of media, at least for now, belongs to such media (social media)," he told Bernama on the sidelines of the OANA gathering.
He added the public would be able to directly access updated news through the OANA social media community at any time.
Zulkefli had, among others, pointed out that the concept of community was no longer limited in terms of geographical location since the advent of the Internet, as people could now gather virtually in an online community and share common interest regardless of their physical location.
More importantly, he said, it would allow OANA members to receive news about happenings and events taking place in another member's country from its news agency's own perspectives.
Vietnam News Agency director Vu Viet Trang noted that the Internet and social media had become a necessity in society as evidenced by their increasing usage.
She said nowadays everyone could be a reporter through social media but some neglected accuracy in spreading news.
Therefore, she said, the proposed OANA community would allow people to gain access to information and news produced by real journalists.
"We also can play our role and responsibility in sharing timely and accurate information, pictures and videos with society at large," she said.
In addition, she said such a platform would enable news updates from the Asia-Pacific region to be channelled directly to the world, hence reducing dependence on Western news agencies.
-- BERNAMA

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