Johannesburg - News organisations of the five Brics countries must work together to improve their international influence and counter the unbalanced global information flow still dominated by the west, President of China's Xinhua News Agency Li Conjung said on Tuesday.
Conjung said despite profound changes in the world's economic, political and diplomatic situation, global information flow remained unbalanced.
“Voices of developing countries are often drowned out by the much louder media of the west,” Conjung said in a statement.
He expressed his views as leaders of the Brics group of emerging powers met in Brazil to launch a new development bank and a reserve fund.
The Brics development bank would help facilitate co-operation within the Brics bloc, different from other institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
Conjung acknowledged that the voices of media organisations in emerging economies were gradually strengthening.
“Although the global information flow remains unbalanced, the rapid development of the internet and the mobile web has provided emerging economies with more diversified, equalised and easy-to-access channels of communication,” Conjung said.
As representatives of the world's emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) had laid a solid foundation for economic cooperation but their political influence on the international community remained weak, he said.
“This weakness is not in line with the need for emerging economies to participate in international affairs and their desire to do so,” said Conjung.
Media organisations of the Brics countries face similar external environments and have similar motivations. They should deepen cooperation, making use of the Brics mechanism, and play a bigger role in international communication, Conjung added.
He proposed that Brics media organisations should exchange experience among themselves with the purpose of safeguarding the images of their countries.
They should learn to tell facts in an objective and effective manner and make use of the platform of the World Media Summit (WMS), initiated in 2009 by global news organisations to enhance mutual trust and clear up misunderstanding.
Conjung also called for Brics countries to jointly confront the challenges presented by new media and new technologies through cooperation projects.
Sapa