Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

Azerbaijan State Telegraph Agency (AzerTAc) will hold the presidency of the News Agencies World Congress (NAWC) in 2016-2019.

In 2016, Azerbaijan's capital city, Baku will host the 5th News Agencies World Congress, where the presidency over the congress will be passed to AzerTac.

The decision was made at the 4th News Agencies World Congress in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on November 20.

The congress brings together heads of more than 70 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.

The 1st News Agencies World Congress was held in Moscow, Russia, in 2004, the 2nd was hosted by Estepona, Spain, in 2007, and the 3rd took place in Buenos-Aires, Argentina, in 2007.

The News Agencies World Congress is an international congress for the world's news agencies around the world, which was established in 2004 with the purpose of ensuring and improving the members' ability to perform as key operators in the fast growing diversity of the global media market.

The objectives of the Congress are to strengthen unbiased news reporting, support the principle of freedom of the press and contribute to the general understanding of the news background. The NAWC is working to inspire and support news agencies, sharing knowledge of the most modern and important developments in the media business. The NAWC seeks to address the issues of digitization, social media and the development of alternative business models.