Asian press urged to compete

Asian press urged to compete

SEOUL (Reuter): Asia's rapid economic development requires the region's news agencies to hone standards of journalism to improve the reporting of its own affairs, South Korea's information minister said yesterday.

Oh In-Whan criticized what he called the Western media's news monopoly which he said had grown even greater with the rapid economic development of the Asia-Pacific and increased Western pressure on Asia to open its markets.

He told a meeting of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), representing 30 agencies in 23 countries, that the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) this year signaled the start of "a new form of trade war".

Guo Chaoren, president of Chinese agency Xinhua, said the focus of the Seoul meeting was to improve the training of personnel to produce better and faster news stories over more advanced communications systems.