BEIJING, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. The most important challenge in the era of uncertainties is not to forget about the mission of reporting and journalism- a moral obligation in making our journalistic decisions, ARMENPRESS director Aram Ananyan said in his remarks at the Building New Platforms of Media Cooperation for Common Development discussion at the first Media Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Beijing, China.

In his speech, Aram Ananyan noted that all news media have found themselves in the era of global challenges and uncertainties.

Traditional media, namely news agencies and the existence of artificial intelligence in news-making and gathering, the use of social media, live broadcasts and push notifications cannot compete successfully without cooperation, he said.

“New platforms for those joint efforts are of a keen importance to safeguard a better future for traditional journalism. The most important challenge in the era of uncertainties is not to forget about the mission of reporting and journalism- a moral obligation in making our journalistic decisions”, he said.

Ananyan emphasized that the global media equilibrium can be characterized as a form of cohabitation of traditional journalism, new media, social networks, citizen- journalism and artificial intelligence.

“What we observed in our practice and I suppose it is much alike with yours - our audience becomes more and more demanding. They do not want interpretation of the events; they want to know what happens here and now and are eager to become an integral part of the news”, he said.

He stressed the significance of creating a new toolbox for the development of capacities of news media and the significance of “knocking to each and every person in our audience”.

“These were the trends we saw in the course of the recent developments in Armenia that are known as “Armenia’s Velvet revolution”. We are grateful to the dozens of international partners, who relied on the factual reports of ARMENPRESS. We did our best to provide you with fast and fact-checked information. We are grateful for your trust and support. As an agency with a wide variety of international contacts and cooperation we аrе optimistic in our predictions for the further professional cooperation,” he said.

Introducing his agency, Aram Ananyan noted that ARMENPRESS, founded in 1918, will mark its centennial this year.

“The agency is the biggest and oldest in Armenia. At the moment it produces eleven newswires in four languages, the official newspapers, photo and video services.  The staff of ARMENPRESS champions a leading position in the informational landscape of Armenia and has set firm basis in international and regional news platforms- safeguarding its robust development. We are proud of the readers and subscribers of ARMENPRESS and are happy to record the trust in the information produced by the agency and its high quotation rate and penetration by International and Armenian media including the Armenian Diaspora”, he said.

Ananyan mentioned that the agency is currently actively working for modernizing its photo service.

“The “ARMENPRESS History” project- aimed to digitalize the rich photo archive of the agency is available via special stand alone photo portal”, he said.

The director of ARMENPRESS noted that the agency is a member to 4 international media organizations. The agency represents Armenia in the CIS Information Council, the Black Sea Association of National News Agencies, and The Council of National News Agencies of Southeastern Europe and the Balkan countries (observer) and News Agencies World Congress.  ARMENPRESS chaired the Black Sea Association of National News Agencies in 2014-2016, the sessions of which and the CIS Information Council were held in Yerevan in 2010 and 2014.

ARMENPRESS has signed agreements on bilateral partnership with dozens of leading news agencies nearly 1/3 of which have been signed during the last 5 years.

“We narrate a significant portion of our routine reporting by the software, that we developed with the Technological Development Center, a non-profit foundation, based in Yerevan”, he added.

ENGLISH: Editor/Translator - Stepan Kocharyan