Deputy Director General of the Vietnam News Agency Le Quoc Minh (L) talks to leaders of IRNA of Iran on the sidelines of the summit in St. Petersburg (Photo: VNA) Moscow (VNA) - Deputy Director General of the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)Le Quoc Minh attended an international summit of news agencies themed “Futureof Journalism in Times of New Challenges” held within the framework of the 22ndInternational Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on May 24.
The event, sponsored by Russia’s TASS newsagency, was attended by representatives from nearly 30 major news outletsaround the world, including Russia Today, AP of the United States, ANSA ofItaly, AFP of France, Kyodo News of Japan, Xinhua of China, EFE of Spain, PA ofthe United Kingdom, IRNA of Iran and Prensa Latina of Cuba.
Speaking at the summit, TASS DirectorGeneral Sergei Mikhailov stressed there is a need to develop verification mechanismsto counter fake news.
"It is no news that media outlets havebeen using social media as sources of information, it is also no news thatsocial media users learn about various events, particularly incidents, beforethe media do," he said. "It is impossible and wrong to ignore this,so professional media outlets should learn to make the most of it,"Mikhailov added.
He highlighted the need to create tools forcommunicating with users in order to employ them "as a network of civicjournalists, active in various parts of the world, and at the same time resolvethe verification issue."
Hiroki Sugita, Executive Director at KyodoNews, proposed building an information authentication system, which, he said,needs joint efforts from news outlets.
Ian Phillips from AP, stated that socialnetwork users have gained access to different sources of information.Therefore, readers want to receive information from authenticated sources ofnews, and pay much attention to “data verification”.
AP is recruiting new employees in charge ofdata verification, he shared.
Robotisation in journalism was alsodiscussed by participants.
TASS Director General Sergei Mikhailov said thereis no need to be afraid of content production automation.
According to him, if artificial intelligencecan process 80 percent of information content in future, journalists will havemore time to work with sources of information or find new topics, thus helpingincrease the quality of information.
Agreeing, Director General of the Armenianews agency Armenpress Aram Ananyan said mass media and news agencies arepioneers in developing technologies in artificial intelligence to produce news.
He stressed the need for mass media and newsagencies to remember their mission to tell the truth.-VNA
VNA
