ANTARA establishes cooperation with three global Russian media outlets
Moscow (ANTARA) - The President Director of the National News Agency ANTARA, Benny Siga Butarbutar, has established cooperation and constructive dialogue with three global-scale Russian media outlets. These influential Russian media organisations are RT (Russia Today), SPUTNIK, and TASS.
Benny signed a news exchange agreement with SPUTNIK, committed to developing specialised audiovisual news coverage with RT, and engaged in constructive dialogue with TASS in Moscow on Tuesday (22/9).
The head of ANTARA is currently in Russia to attend the annual meeting of the Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), which comprises 41 news agencies from 35 countries.
Following the annual conference and the 65th anniversary celebrations of OANA, Benny proceeded to the RT headquarters in the Borovaya district, central Moscow, where he was met by RT Director General Vera Kharina to agree on potential audiovisual cooperation.
The President Director of ANTARA was subsequently invited to participate in a television interview focusing on the outcomes of the OANA meeting and the future challenges facing media in the era of AI and fake news.
“We discussed the rise of disinformation and fake news attacks in the Asia-Pacific region, which threaten the truth produced by the region’s mainstream media. Therefore, we agreed to sign a joint task force with the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN) to address this by utilising media networks across Asia-Pacific,” he stated.
During the interview on the English-language channel, Benny also explained that the dominance of information originating from only one region or one-sided perspective is highly unfair and diminishes the truthfulness of news.
Consequently, media organisations must establish a balance from other regions to ensure that news can truly possess objectivity and the factual value of occurring events.
On the same day, Benny continued his itinerary by visiting the SPUTNIK headquarters in the Zubovsky district, also in central Moscow, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding news reporting.
This cooperation is intended to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries, in line with Indonesia’s independent and active foreign policy.
The MoU signing ceremony was conducted by Benny alongside Sergey Kochetkov, First Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, accompanied by Deputy Director of Foreign Language News Production Alla Chernysheva, and witnessed by the Deputy Indonesian Ambassador to Moscow, Hartyo Harkomeyo.
Similar to the engagement with Russia Today, the President Director of ANTARA was also invited to serve as a resource person for an English-language dialogue at SPUTNIK. Regarding the TASS news agency, Benny discussed potential deeper cooperation concerning journalist capacity building, alongside existing news exchange programmes.
The outcomes of the discussions with these three global Russian media outlets will be followed up at a technical level by the respective Russian media representatives in Jakarta.
Furthermore, constructive dialogues were held with leaders of ASEAN news agencies (Malaysia, Philippines, and Laos), as well as agencies from other parts of Asia, including Kyodo (Japan), Nepal News Agency (RSS), and Montsame (Mongolia), and Bakhtar (Afghanistan).
Productive discussions were also conducted by the President Director of ANTARA with news agency leaders from East Asia, such as Kyodo (Japan), Xinhua (China), and Yonhap (South Korea), as well as from the Middle East, including the Saudi Press Agency (Saudi Arabia), IRNA and Mehr (Iran), and Anadolu (Turkiye).