Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

The fourth News Agencies World Congress (NAWC) under the patronage of Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, themed "Re-inventing the News Agency in the 21st century" started in Riyadh on November 19, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Azerbaijan`s State Telegraph Agency AzerTAc, Trend International News Agency, and AzerNews were invited to participate at the congress.

Organized by the SPA, the event is attended by top-ranked Saudi officials, as well as heads of more than 70 world leading news agencies, including Turkey's Anadolu, Russia's ITAR-TASS, Egypt's MENA, Argentina's TELAM, French Agence France-Presse, UK's Press Association, Australian Associated Press, Thomson Reuters, Southern Korea's YONHAP, and news alliances such as OANA, EANA, FANA, IINA, and media corporations, including SKY News Arabia, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, and BBC, and internet corporations such as MSN, Google and Yahoo and some 30 representatives of specialized media and experts on information technologies and communications.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Culture and Media Abdulaziz bin Mohieddin Khoja greeted the participants on behalf of King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.

The minister urged the media to accept the challenges of technology in contemporary information management in order to successfully continue their existence. He said the congress was timely in view of the challenges facing global media practice.

President of the 3rd World Congress of News Agencies, Director Manager of the Argentine Press Agency (Telam) Alberto Hugo Emaldi delivered a speech, in which he highlighted the importance of new media and the necessity to keep abreast with the new developments and changes in communication media to ensure the quick and accurate deliverance of news to recipients.

President of the Saudi Press Agency, Abdullah Bin Fahad Al-Hussein presented the agenda of the three-day congress. He noted the congress will feature five plenary sessions titled: "New market products and services", "Social media and other news digital platforms", "Arabic language broadcasters' perspective on news agencies", "Capitalizing on new opportunities", "How can news agencies support newspapers' future needs?". The SPA President called upon event participants to engage in constructive dialogue.

The head of Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the chairman of the Fourth World Congress Abdullah bin Fahd Al-Hussein said that the event is aimed at improvement of activity of news agencies, as they are the main producers of news in the world in spite of increasing emergence of new media.

It is expected that the president and CEO of Associated Press Gary Pruitt, Managing Director of Reuters Stephen Schwartz, president and CEO of Agency France-Press Emmanuel Hoog, president and CEO of EFE agency Jose Antonio Vera, Director General of ITAR-TASS Sergei Mikhailov and others will speak at the conference.