Baku hosts 5th News Agencies World Congress

Azerbaijan will be represented by Trend and Azertag news agencies.

Co-organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Azerbaijan’s state new agency AZERTAC, these events bring together heads and representatives of about 100 news agencies, which shape the global information policy, international media experts, UN - UNESCO official, and representatives of regional media organizations.

The slogan of the 5th News Agencies World Congress is "New Challenges for News Agencies”. The Congress features several sessions, including "The future of news consumption”, "News agencies – challenges and opportunities of new technologies and social media”, "News agency innovation”, "Training journalists for a multi-media future”, "Protecting the journalists’ mission: freedom, access, safety and conflict zones”. It also addresses problems facing journalism, which is now in experiencing rapid transformation, and forms of cooperation between news agencies and different social media platforms.

Speakers at the sessions include presidents of the News Agencies World Congress, OANA, EANA, FANA, managers of Associated Press, Reuters, Xinhua, Anadolu Agency, TASS, Agence France-Press, Press Association, EFE, Yonhap, Kyodo, TT, SPA, BTA, AAP, IRNA, DPA, Notimex, ATPE and other leading news agencies, Los Angeles Times newspaper, Al Arabiya television channel, and experts from Tripod Advisors, News Corp, PwC, Axel Springer, Stibo Accelerator media companies.

The Congress will see presentation of a photo album featuring nearly 600 photographs by the participating agencies in "News”, "Festivities” and "Sport” categories. The photo album was published through partnership between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Baku Media Center.

Initiated by the Russian TASS news agency, the 1st News Agencies World Congress was held in Moscow on Sept. 24-25, 2004. The three other congresses took place in Spain, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. The main body of the Congress is the Council. At the 4th Congress, which was hosted by Riyadh in 2013, Associated Press, Reuters, Press Association, SPA, TASS, EFE, Kuna, AZERTAC and TELAM agencies as well as secretaries general of EANA, OANA and FANA were elected as members of the Council. The Baku Congress will elect new members of the Council.

An initiative of UNESCO, the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies was founded in 1961 with the aim of expanding news exchange among regional news agencies. OANA’s members include 44 news agencies from 35 countries. Having joined OANA in 2004, AZERTAC has been elected a member of its Executive Board for three times. At the 15th General Assembly held in Moscow in 2013, AZERTAC was elected – by secret ballot – as president of the organization for 2016-2019.