site.bta BTA Hosts International Conference on "The Role of News Agencies in Time of Crisis"

BTA Hosts International Conference on "The Role of News Agencies in Time of Crisis"

Sofia, September 7 (BTA) - Thirty directors of 20 news agencies in the Balkans and the Black Sea region are arriving in Sofia for a conference entitled "The Role of the News Agencies in Time of Crisis".

The event, which will take place in Sofia and Nessebur (on the Black Sea) between September 7 and 11, is hosted by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).

European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) Secretary General Erik Nylen will also be present at the official opening of the conference, which will take place at the BTA National Press Club on September 8.

The guest lecturers include Agence France-Presse Regional Director Odile Duperry and Bulgarian political scientist Antonii Gulubov. The programme includes discussions on the role of news agencies in conditions of political, financial, economic and migrant crises and military conflicts.

The 25th General Assembly of the Association of Balkan News Agencies - Southeast Europe (ABNA-SE) and the 8th Annual Meeting of the Black Sea Association of National News Agencies (BSANNA) will take place during the forum on September 9. They will be hosted by Nessebur, which is a site on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Subjects related to copyright, new technologies, the presence in the social networks and other news business novelties will be commented at the meetings. Eighty per cent of the world's information originates from national and global news agencies.

ABNA-SE was established in Thessaloniki, Greece, on June 26, 1995 and has eleven full members: AGERPRES (Bucharest, Romania), ANA-MPA (Athens, Greece), Anadolu Agency (Ankara, Turkey), ATA (Tirana, Albania), BTA (Sofia, Bulgaria), CNA (Nicosia, Cyprus), FENA (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), HINA (Zagreb, Croatia), MIA (Skopje, Macedonia), SRNA (Banja Luka, Republika Srpksa in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Tanjug (Belgrade, Serbia) and three observers: Armenpress (Yerevan, Armenia), MOLDPRES (Chisinau, Moldova), and STA (Ljubljana, Slovenia).

BSANNA was established in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 30, 2006 and has 15 members: AGERPRES, ANA-MPA, Anadolu Agency, Armenpress, ATA, AZERTAC (Baku, Azerbaijan), BTA, CNA, GHN (Tbilisi, Georgia), HINA, MIA, MOLDPRES, TASS (Moscow, Russia), Tanjug, and UKRINFORM (Kyiv, Ukraine).