OANA Executive Board Meeting adopts Seoul Declaration

The 39th Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) Executive Board Meeting has adopted Seoul Declaration.

The event took place at the headquarters of Yonhap News Agency, South Korea's top news wire. The declaration envisages expanding cooperation to maintain credibility of the member news agencies, especially in the age of mobile media.

Prior to closing ceremony, the participants were informed about state-of-the-art innovations implemented by the Russian TASS news agency for OANA website.

IT Director of TASS news agency Mikhail Ivanov highlighted a deal of works carrying out for further promoting website. He stressed the importance of participation of member agencies in spreading the news in social network. He noted that TASS, AZERTAC, Montsama and other agencies are distinguished with promoting OANA in Facebook and posting news at the Organization`s official website.

In his closing remarks, Yonhap CEO Park No-hwang said the board meeting has allowed member organizations to share their common interests and concerns.

Director General of the Russian news agency TASS, OANA president Sergey Mikhailov said active participation of member agencies indicate their attaching importance to the cooperation.

Director General of AZERTAC Aslan Aslanov said OANA`s attention with regard to influence the modern technologies to the activity of the news agencies was a very important step.

Mr Aslanov said: "We should use social media and mobile technologies in the flexible possible manner in order to ensure the timely delivery of news to consumers. People`s choosing their source of news will depend on how effectively we work. Technologies are changing, and we are also changing. New generations bring new technologies, new approaches, new ideas. But we should be guided by the main principle which remains to be unchanged: this is the spread of accurate and quality news." "The fact that these issues are on our agenda today demonstrates that the organization attaches particular emphasis to the future progress of our agencies. Once again I would like to thank the management of OANA and Yonhap agency for structuring today`s session in this extremely well manner," he said.

The next boarding meeting has been slated for spring 2016 in Bahrain, OANA said.

The association is scheduled to hold a general assembly in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku in November 2016.

OANA was launched in 1961 as a major network of regional news agencies. Its members consist of 43 news agencies from 35 countries.

/By AzerTac/