OANA Introduces Award To Recognise Quality Of News Agencies' Services

The 38th Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) Executive Board Meeting unanimously agreed today to have an award to recognise the quality of the services of news agencies.
The yearly award will be introduced by TASS Russian news agency to observe the importance of high quality service provided by a news agency as well as a platform for the exchange of experience among OANA members.
The annual prize is awarded to an employee or a team of employees at one of the member-agencies of OANA, who in a distinguished way has or have contributed to improving the standard of quality of their agency during the past working year.
According to the organisation, the award is open to all categories of employees at news agencies. The winner will get a diploma, a US$1,000 and be invited to the General Assembly or the Executive Board Meeting (EBM).
Commenting on the award, Bernama General Manager Datuk Zulkefli Salleh said it was introduced to encourage members of OANA to achieve and strive for excellence.
He said that this was not a competitive award but more as explained by Iran's IRNA representative, which was to encourage closer cooperation.
"So I think we are moving forward to a very cohesive organisation and hopefully OANA will play a more effective role in the future," he told reporters after the meeting.
Besides the award, Zulkefli said that members also agreed for the setting up of a Code of Conduct (ethics) to be practiced by the 44 Asia-Pacific news agencies and for OANA to have a cooperation with the Federation of Arab News Agencies' (FANA.
The meeting, hosted by Bernama, is participated by some 40 chief executive officers and top officials from OANA executive board members.
The news agencies invol ved at the meeting are Russia's TASS, South Korea's Yonhap, Indonesia's Antara, Emirates News Agency (WAM), Vietnam News Agency (VNA), Bahrain News Agency (BNA), Iran's IRNA, Turkey's Anadolu, Iran's Mehr News Agency (MNA), Mongolia's MONTSAME News Agency, Australian Associated Press (AAP), Azerbaijan's AzerTAc and Kazakhstan's INA kazinform.
OANA was formed in 1961 on the initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to secure direct and free exchange of news among the news agencies of a region inhabited by more than one half of the world's population.
OANA'S 44 news agencies from 35 countries are responsible for two-thirds of information circulated throughout the world.




By Azzah Mohamad Som
-- BERNAMA