TEHRAN – Senior media officials in the Asia Pacific region on Tuesday committed to strengthen their partnerships and expertise to fight disinformation and misinformation in providing the public with balanced, factual, and objective news.
The group emphasized this as members adopted the Tehran Declaration at the closing of the 18th general assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) at the Parsian Azadi Hotel here.
"OANA members will promote cooperation among news agencies in order to fight fake news and enhance credibility of reports and news products," it said.
The collegial body added that while the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has imposed some limitations, media organizations have devised new strategies and employed modern technologies "in order to appropriately respond to the needs of their audience."
"Member agencies will continue sharing experiences in the framework of OANA to keep up with the new conditions and developments," it added.
It also committed to continue to work together and try to overcome any obstacles that can affect cooperation its members.
"Recognizing international norms such as national sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, member agencies emphasize that professional media are not expected to threaten national sovereignty of independent states around the world," the group said.
Iran's official news agency, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) headed by Managing Director Ali Naderi, was also elected by board members as new OANA president for the next three years. Naderi said IRNA will further promote relations between member news agencies, guided in the path of independent and unbiased dissemination of factual news.
He also thanked the Republic of Korea’s Yonhap News Agency which chaired the organization over the past three years.
Naderi also received from Yonhap the OANA flag during the symbolic turnover.
Also elected as vice presidents were Russia's TASS News Agency, Azerbaijan State News Agency AZERTAC, Xinhua of the People's Republic of China, and Turkey's Anadolu Agency.
Among the resource speakers during the three-day gathering were Aslan Aslanov, chairman of the board of AZERTAC; Toshimitsu Sawai, Executive Director of Japan's Kyodo News Agency; and Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev, who is also president of the News Agencies World Congress.
Formed in 1961 on UNESCO's initiative, OANA currently has 44 members from 35 countries in Asia and Oceania that promotes news cooperation, sharing of expertise and people-to-people exchanges.
Early in the morning, the group also paid a courtesy to President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, of the Islamic Republic of Iran, at the Presidential Office along Tehran Pasteur Avenue here.
The next OANA general assembly will be held in Russia. (PNA)
