OANA: Challenges and opportunities

The Organization of Asia-paci¿c News Agencies (OANA) and its executive committee’s meeting on media diplomacy in Tehran once again provide a great opportunity to promote empathy, cooperation and unity among the member states, and cement the regional and international ties between states and peoples.

The main philosophy of OANA is to foster unity and media cooperation in the Asia-paci¿c region, and in general to help the East’s media stand up to the dominant media and news services of the world, especially the Western media.

Among its goals, OANA seeks to grant its media higher authority and increase their resilience in a bid to foil the Western mainstream media’s conspiracies, propaganda and psychological warfare.

IRNA Managing Director Zia Hashemi said the existential philosophy of OANA is to promote unity, cooperation and collaboration among the media in the Eastern part of the globe in the face of the West’s mainstream media.

“Today, media diplomacy plays a more important role than the of¿cial diplomacy in promoting peace and coexistence,” Hashemi said.

He said that one of the main goals of OANA is to bolster the authority and resilience of its members to provide the path for enhancement of political, economic and cultural power.

“To this end, we as members of the Organization of Asia-paci¿c News Agencies need to interact, cooperate closely and act in unison,” he said.