site.btaNews Agencies Representatives Discuss Fight against Disinformation at Delphi Economic Forum

A discussion on Combatting Disinformation in a Multipolar World: Strategies, Tools and Challenges, was held here on Saturday within the framework of the Delphi Economic Forum. Participating were BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, EANA Secretary General Alexandru Ion Giboi, KosovaPress owner Skender Krasniqi, Agerpres Director General Claudia Victoria Nicolae, AFP Bureau Chief in Greece Yannick Pasquet, Bosnia and Herzegovina's Federal News Agency Deputy Manager Ilija Musa, and AMNA President Aimilios Perdikaris. 

In his speech, the BTA Director General argued that news agencies must guard the source of information from disinformation and also be a free source of real news. The news agencies need to change with new strategy and new instruments, as the world around them changes. He went on to catalogue nine things that they need to do.

AMNA President Aimilios Perdikaris, who moderated the discussion, said that news agencies are the link between events and other media; they spread the news without commenting, work in the field and serve as a main source. According to him, that makes journalists working at news agencies responsible for the truth.

EANA Secretary General Alexandru Ion Giboi said that news agencies should be supported as a main source of fact-based news both financially and in terms of guaranteed independence. It is wrong to think that whoever pays should determine how the end product looks like; it should not be like that in journalism. Investment is also needed in classes in media literacy that covers both society and journalists themselves. News agencies transcribe official information, they do not interpret it. However, today it seems that the quality of public speaking is dropping, making news agencies' role more difficult and important, the EANA Secretary General noted.

Agerpres Director General Claudia Victoria Nicolae said that the most objective news used by all media come from news agencies, which have the obligation to connect the facts. Journalists are ever more transforming into fact-checkers, as fact-checking is a luxury for everyone when time for reading all news is limited. According to her, old-fashioned journalism should be followed and objective news promoted. At the same time, news agencies should develop alongside technologies.

KosovaPress owner Skender Krasniqi said news agencies' task is to find a way to reduce disinformation, because its full elimination looks nearly impossible. The next challenge for news agencies is to improve even further the quality of news and fight fake news, because limiting them is doable. Big companies such as Facebook, YouTube, and X too can contribute greatly to that end by providing more space for reliable information sources, such as news agencies.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's Federal News Agency Deputy Manager Ilija Musa said they want true facts in their news and are trying to make the media space peaceful. "We have many problems as we try to join the EU," he added. In his words, the agency can set some rules on fact-checking related to the finding of truly official sources, source verification, review of documents related to the given news, research in reliable media, and confirmation of the information's reliability. In his words, one of his country's biggest problems is that social networks and online media are not obliged to register anywhere.

AFP Bureau Chief in Greece Yannick Pasquet said everyone, be they fact-checkers, print media journalists, photo or video journalists, should check the information and prove the facts they publish daily. Fact-checking has become of AFP's editorial priorities. The agency began in 2017 to create a network of journalists to work on digital investigations, and now has 150 journalists around the globe dealing solely with these investigations. AFP has a a unit checking facts in 80 countries and publishing such articles in 26 languages.

The topic of this year's Delphi Economic Forum is The Great Transition, focusing on the multifaceted transitions the world is experiencing in geopolitics, climate, technology, and several other sectors.