By IANS,
Madrid : Argentine capital Buenos Aires will host the third World Congress of news agencies in October 2010, representatives of the World Council of News Agencies have agreed in a meeting here, the EFE news agency reported Tuesday.
Argentine news agency Telam will organise the 2010 event, its president Martin Granovsky told the meeting held Monday at the headquarters of the EFE news agency, and stressed that the congress would underscore “commitment to freedom of speech, diversity and the role of news agencies around the world”.
Granovsky stressed the “fair play” that was operative in the election of Buenos Aires as the setting of the congress and related it to a tacit agreement among agency heads that “there will be no competition among us but rather collaboration”.
“Not only is there room for everyone, but also if we don’t collaborate…news agencies will end up as museum pieces. None of those that were here want to feel nostalgia for news agencies, we want a project with a future,” the Argentine journalist said.
Present at Monday’s meeting were top executives from Australia’s AAP, Agence France Presse, the Associated Press, Italy’s ANSA, Agencia EFE of Spain, Russia’s Itar-Tass and Press Trust of India, among others.
EFE CEO Alex Grijelmo, as president of the World Council of News Agencies, opened the meeting and underscored the work done up to now “to contribute to a greater awareness of the role and the importance of news agencies”.
Grijelmo emphasised the need to “deal with the rapid growth of globalisation, the impact of the Internet and digital media” as well as continuing to do professional journalism not entangled with political interests.
The group’s first world congress was held in Moscow in 2004 while the second was held in the southern Spanish town of Estepona in 2007.