“Let’s make this a memorable opportunity, oriented towards permanent action from every place and responsibility we occupy, in pursuit of news stories that are increasingly closer to our realities, inclusive and humanistic, Martha Isabel Andrés, editor-in-chief of the news service founded on June 16, 1959, told the meeting.
Andrés went on to recall the challenges the agency has faced in surviving for more than six and a half decades, amid an array of hurdles, as she addressed the meeting, which closes tomorrow and is attended by 350 representatives from 170 organizations, media, think tanks, governments and companies from 70 countries.
Despite all the changes the international media landscape has gone through, our main objective has remained unchanged: reporting an alternative message, different from that of the prevailing Western media, and telling the stories about peoples and countries whose voices are not usually heard, she said.
In citing Prensa Latina’s news priorities, she mentioned such reiterated topics as the fight against hunger and poverty, the promotion of peace in the world and the the most basic human rights.
If there is one vital lesson we have learned and promoted throughout the history of our agency, it is the importance of cooperating with other media outlets that are also focused on the Global South, Andrés stressed.
She brought up as an example the recent project called “Voices of the Global South,” a multilingual platform that has been publishing articles from almost 100 media outlets from different countries since March last.
Also speaking at the forum, Fu Hua, president of the Chinese news agency Xinhua, referred to the need to reduce the development gap between the North and the South, and to promote mutual learning among diverse cultures.
Hu Heping, vice-head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, recommended promoting the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, strengthening the voice and influence of the Global South and the tenets of a multipolar world.
The forum witnessed the launching of a Global South News Network, which invited all participating media entities to join the initiative.
Xinhua and the Brazilian Communications Company are the organizers of this meeting, which upholds cooperation and mutual benefits, exchanges among civilizations and deals with the new challenges to media in the contemporary world.
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