Nation
Asian media should collaborate more
By ZHAO HUANXIN AND KAREN YIP (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-10 07:26
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Alliance members to focus on 'We know Asia better'
BEIJING - A top government spokesman on Friday proposed that Asian news organizations expand coverage of each other's countries to increase cooperation and better serve the populous continent.
"In domestic developments and international exchanges, Asian members are pursuing the same or similar goals and confronting challenges that are alike in many aspects," Wang Chen, minister of the State Council Information Office, told senior editors attending the annual meeting of Asia News Network (ANN) in Beijing.
Both government information agencies and media organizations should commit to more exchanges and collaborations, in order to increase understanding and build up a consensus of opinion on issues of common concern, he said at the opening of the meeting.
China appreciates the unique role ANN plays in promoting media partnerships and its efforts to realize the ideal of "Asians reporting Asia" based on the motto "We Know Asia Better", the minister said.
He promised that the State Council Information Office will continue to support ANN and push Chinese media to forge tighter links with their counterparts in other Asian countries.
Asia's largest international news alliance, ANN was formed in 1999 to provide avenues for cooperation, as well as to optimize coverage of major news events in the region.
Wang expressed hope that the alliance of 21 leading newspapers in 19 member countries and regions in Asia will make full use of its abundant resources, innovates cooperative methods, boosts regional development and helps Asian people better understand each other.
News organizations in Asia should also increase exchanges with the mainstream media outside the continent to help them present Asia in a more accurate, objective and unbiased way, he added.
At Friday's annual board meeting, ANN Chairman Nguyen Tien Le highlighted the exchanges of journalists who work at member newspapers.
"Although 2009 was a quiet year for us due to the financial crisis, I'm pleased to note that we had fruitful exchanges, such as educational visits to the newsrooms of our members, the recently redesigned ANN website and Asianews, ANN's bi-monthly magazine," he said.
Under the sponsorship of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), a German foundation, news coordinators among ANN members successfully met last year.
"The coordinators' meeting is incredibly important, not only to get to know each other better, but in terms of the need to encourage cooperation among members," said Paul Linnarz, director of Media Program Asia at KAS Singapore.
China Daily
(China Daily 04/10/2010 page3)
