OANA needs permanent secretariat

News agencies of the Organization of Asia-pacific News Agencies (OANA) need a permanent secretariat to help them have clear planning, according to the director general of Syria’s state news agency SANA.

Abdul-rahim Ahmed made the remarks in an interview with the IRNA correspondent in Damascus on the eve of the OANA meeting in Tehran.

The sanctions on Syria stopped SANA from paying its membership fee for some years, Ahmed said, adding although the news agency sent the fee with delay, they could not withdraw the money from the account.

He said that setting up a permanent secretariat could prevent such a problem.

OANA intends to defend the rights of its member countries and cope with the West’s media war, the official said.

OANA members’ staff are required to pass courses on new scientific and practical instruments, Ahmed said, stressing the need for exchange of views and experiences between the member news agencies.

He said that the capacity of IRNA School of Media Studies can be used to train OANA member news agencies’ staff.

The top SANA official called for OANA member news agencies to set up a news faculty for training staff and launch a joint satellite to cover all the news of the member countries.

A half of the whole world population are living in the OANA area, he said, adding the organization can play a more influential role in the world of news through further solidarity and unity.

Some nonprofessional people are active in social media who pay no attention to the source and credibility of news, Ahmed regretted, adding news agencies should play their parts as reliable sources of news.