News Focus: ASIA PACIFIC MEDIA URGED TO END INFORMATION IMBALANCE By Eliswan Azly

Jakarta, Nov 17 (ANTARA) - Media in Asia Pacific region have been urged to end the existing unbalanced information facing the global world now in addition to being able to proportionally express their opinion.

Dr Ahmad Mukhlis Yusuf, the president of the Organization of Asia Pacific News Agencies (OANA) in a board executive meeting of the organization in Teheran, the capital of Iran, on Tuesday, said the Asia Pacific journalists should be able to voice the issues happening in their own region, but not by the western media.
According to him, developed countries representing one-seventh of the world population had recently dominated two-thirds of the flow of world information and around 80 percent of the news reports disseminated in the world every day came from the western news agencies.

"It is not always right for western media to dominate information in the Asia Pacific region, thus dictating what they want to cover and how a certain event should be covered in that region which actually poses our own portion to do it," he said.

Mukhlis who is also president director of Antara News Agency said it was unfair for developed countries to set an agenda on what news or events that should not be disseminated in the front page of media in Asia Pacific region.

"Developed countries want to be strongly heard, to improve cooperation and to jointly voice their opinion in international arena. The image of Asia Pacific region depends much on how the world media report it," he said.

According to him, OANA which was established in 1961 aimed to make a balance in the flow of the world information and had actually voiced the importance of new order in news dissemination.

Earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced western media often regarded as being unhealthy which tended to spread prejudice against the developing countries like Iran and Indonesia.

"They claim themselves as being independent, but they often see anything in the Asia Pacific from a different angle and agenda in their news reports. The way the western media in making news reports is unhealthy and often spread negative stigma," he said in an interview with Antara journalist, Ahmad Kusaini, here, on Wednesday.

However, this Iranian president never felt disturbed and annoyed with the reports of western media which tended to corner him in particular and Iran in general.
The Iranian president, known to be vocal against the United States, said that he didn't feel perturbed with the reports of western media which often made him as the object of their criticism.

"I don't feel disturbed with the reports of the western media which often see me from negative aspects. But what make me sad is that a good man like you disseminate negative reports on Iran," he said.
However, Western media and those in Asia Pacific region, according to him, had a different perspective in choosing the angle of their reports and agenda for their coverage. Media in Asia Pacific region tended to provide peaceful, cool reports in addition to spreading friendship to other part of the world.

Their accurate reports inspired journalists to have the idea in uniting the news dissemination, maintaining mutual respect among member countries which has come up as the character of media in developing countries.
In the meantime, western media often influenced by the jews perspectives disseminated prejudice and strategy to create negative perceptive on developing country, he said.

Ahmadinejad further said the western media always fabricated such small issues in confronting developing countries like Indonesia and Iran, but they often ignored such big issues happening in Palestine and in the United States itself.
For example, the issue on crime against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza was often diverted by western media by saying who is cruel and who is good.

The western media intentionally distorted the facts by reporting Gaza residents as terrorists, while Israelis were reported to be savior of the free world, he said.

"This is something unfair," the Iranian president said.

On the other, he further added, such unrest erupting in a jail in the United States and a repressive handling of demonstrators in Western countries were not covered and analyzed as they often did in the handling of cases happening Indonesia and Iran.

"So many big unrests in American jails and the brutality of security apparatuses have happened. But we don?t see the incidents exaggerated by the media," the president said.
Ahmadinejad unveiled his experiences when he was New York to attend the UN General Session some months ago, many media such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek and a network of US TV stations interview him.
What had made Ahmadinejad astonished was that all most questions, the direction of the publication and the results of coverage were almost the same.
"This is confusing. How could it happen. They claim themselves as independent, but in fact they are all the same. Perhaps, media owners which is big in number are groups of jews," he said.

In order to end the domination of western media's publication like that, Ahmadinejad called on the 44 OANA members to be united and to be synergic in voicing the truth and peace.

"That is the only way to put an end to the domination of western media, most of which are influenced by the Jews and could also be solved in the future," the president said.