Xinhua President: World Media Summit to help global media explore ways of survi

BEIJING, Oct. 7 -- The upcoming World Media Summit under the theme of "Cooperation, Action, Win-Win and Development" is in an effort to explore ways of survival and development for the global media industry, said Li Congjun, President of Xinhua News Agency here on Wednesday.

Xinhua and eight other renowned media organizations including News Corporation, AP, Reuters, ITAR-TASS, Kyodo News, BBC, Turner Broadcasting System and Google Inc. will jointly launch the World Media Summit on Oct 8-10.

"Xinhua and the eight co-chairs have established a secretariat and reached wide consensus on the scale of the summit, theme and topics, organization, agenda setting, expenses, drafting and endorsement of the Joint Statement and the long-term mechanism of the summit," said Li.

By Wednesday, 135 media organizations from 70 countries and regions have confirmed attendance to the summit, including 43 from Europe and North America, 21 from Asia, 17 from the Middle East, 17 from Africa, 20 from Eastern Europe and the realm of the former Soviet Union, 8 from Latin America, and 9 from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, said Li in an media interview on Wednesday.

Li said among these participants are the world's leading media groups. Together they cover all media forms: with 9 media groups, 62 wire services, 29 newspapers and magazines, 30 radios and TVs, two new media firms and three government agencies. The summit has also invited senior executives from more than 40 Chinese media organizations to attend the summit.

"The global media pattern is undergoing unprecedented reforms. The increasing diversity of the audience's demands has posed unparalleled challenges as well as hard-won opportunities to the media sector," he said.

Xinhua initiated the summit by inviting senior executives of 12world leading media organizations for visits to Beijing during last year's Beijing Olympics, including Chairman and CEO of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch, AP President and CEO Thomas Curley, Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger, CEO of Agence France-Presse (AFP) Pierre Louette, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and Kyodo News President Satoshi Ishikawa.

Li said the summit, having gone beyond the barriers separating news agencies, newspapers, radio, TV and the online media, is dedicated to the integration of the traditional and emerging media and building a platform for exchanges and cooperation among worldwide media organizations.

"A senior executive from CNN has compared the World Media Summit to the 'Olympics in the media industry'. I think his idea also represents what many others in the industry are thinking of the event," said Li.

He said Xinhua has worked vigorously to promote exchanges and cooperation with its worldwide colleagues. It is a member of many international media associations, and has reached agreements with media organizations from more than 100 countries and regions on news, personnel exchanges and technical cooperation.

Founded on Nov. 7, 1931, Xinhua News Agency is China's national news agency as well as a global news and information network. It has 33 domestic bureaus in Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. It has posted resident correspondents to Taiwan, and has 117 bureaus out of China.

"I'm afraid there is some misunderstanding when you referred to Xinhua News Agency as a traditional media organization," said Li.

He said Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photos, graphics, audio, video and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.

In its latest moves to expand into a modern, multi-media news and information service provider, Xinhua has launched a video news service, an English TV news service, a mobile phone TV station and a multimedia news desk.

"Xinhua has established a number of platforms to directly serve the end users, including China's largest bloc of national websites. Xinhuanet.com is one of China's top news websites. Xinhua's financial service and its key product, Xinhua 08, have proven increasingly influential in the non-media sector, including the world capital market," he said.

"Traditional media are facing unparalleled opportunities... the boom of information and communication technologies and the rise of new media have offered many new devices, channels, platforms and terminals for traditional media to improve their current business, explore new business areas and expand their audience and market," he said.

Li considered the development of new media in China has outpaced the world average level in recent years, and the online and cell phone media have become an increasingly important source for the public to acquire and exchange information. The new media are also exerting bigger influence on public opinion as well as the market.

"Unlike many other countries, China's traditional media, instead of dwindling against the thriving new media, have maintained their momentum of growth. This is because, on one hand, media in China remains a rising industry and there is still room for development; on the other hand, China's traditional media have made some positive attempts to cope with the changes brought by digitalization and networking technologies," he said.