Thaindian News

Bangkok, Dec 15 (IANS) News agencies from the Asia-Pacific region have agreed that in the process of news reporting, they need to respect and safeguard human rights and individual dignity and show responsibility while covering wars, terrorism, violence or natural disasters.

Representatives from major news agencies of the region — including China’s Xinhua, Japan’s Kyodo and Russia’s ITAR-TASS — met in Bangkok on the occasion of the 50th founding anniversary of the Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA).

More than 30 delegates from around 20 news agencies expressed concern over the growing financial and social problems faced by humanity, said Xinhua.

In an “Ethical Guidelines Declaration” issued at the meet, the news agencies said: “We should respect the privacy of the individual and the dignity of the dead regardless of who they are.”

The document was drafted by the Anadolu agency of Turkey. Kemal Ozturk, OANA president and director general of Anadolu, made a comparison between social media and news agencies.

“Although social media is a great tool to gather and disseminate news, it has some innate problems. It is a minefield where there are a lot of hoaxes, fake identities, false stories, slanders, and disinformation. They hardly stick to media ethics and guidelines on social platforms,” he said.

He urged news agencies to stand out to fulfill the public’s right to accurate and reliable information and uphold the media’s ethical guidelines.

Founded Dec 22, 1961 in Bangkok at the initiative of the Unesco, the OANA now has 44 member news agencies from 35 countries across the Asia-Pacific region.

“The OANA has grown to become the largest regional news agency alliance in the world. It has always functioned as a common platform for this vast area of the world where diverse political systems, colors, races, cultures and religions co-exist,” said Ozturk.