OANA Ethical Guidelines Declaration

By Jamaluddin Muhammad BANGKOK, Dec 14 (Bernama) –- The Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) has come out with a six-point Ethical Guidelines Declaration as it celebrated its 50th anniversary here on Wednesday. There are: 1. Act responsibly in covering wars, conflicts, terrorism, violence and natural disasters, bearing in mind the public interest in full, fair and accurate reporting, respect for privacy and universal human rights; 2. Take great care on the quality and style of our stories that they do not encourage violence, spread fear, traumatise, damage the principles of equality and justice, degrade human dignity and foster discrimination; 3. Refrain from publishing stories or visual material that will be deemed offensive and discriminatory on the basis of class, race, language, religion, gender, and region that will generate feelings of hostility among people; 4. Accept the sanctity of human life and avoid running pictures or video footage that will hurt the dignity of victims and cause further suffering to their families and psychological distress in public; 5. Respect the privacy of the individual and the dignity of the dead, regardless of who they are; and, 6. Exercise great judgement and be selective in distributing graphic pictures and videos of executions, close-up shots of dead or wounded people and mutilated bodies and limbs, degrading human dignity. The meeting pledged to work closely in implementing the declaration in acknowledging their inevitable responsibility to incorporate guidelines into their editorial principles. OANA president Kemal Ozturk said with the declaration, OANA promised to fulfill the public right to accurate and reliable information and also declare its will to uphold media ethical guidelines. "On this important day in OANA's history, we would like to send out a message to the world media by issuing the declaration that underlines the media ethics," he said. OANA, which comprises 44 news agencies from 35 countries in the Asia-Pacific, was set up in this capital, 50 years ago, in a move to allow freer flow of information in this region through the exchange of news, photos and video footage among its members. Thirty-one participants from news agencies including Kyodo (Japan), Xinhua (China), Itar-Tass (Russia), Anadolu (Turkey), Kuwait News Agency, Qatar News Agency, AzerTAc (Azerbaijan), Vietnam News Agency, Thai News Agency and Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) attended OANA's two-day, 50th anniversary celebrations, starting today. BERNAMA was represented by its general manager, Hasnul Hassan. The meeting also deliberated on challenges and opportunities faced by news agencies in the region as the result of the development of the social media. -- BERNAMA Malaysia