The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) held its General Assembly meeting in Paris this year, with Greece and the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) represented by ANA-MPA’s president and general manager, Aimilios Perdikaris.
Perdikaris participated in a panel on the sideline event held by EANA and Agence France-Presse (AFP) on climate change, natural catastrophes, and their coverage by news agencies. He referred extensively to the catastrophic floods that hit Thessaly recently, and to the great fires in the summer, noting that Greece is now experiencing in a dramatic way the repercussions of climate change, and he presented audiovisual material, describing the way the phenomena and their repercussions were covered by ANA-MPA, and emphasizing at the same time the difficulties and challenges journalists face in the field.
ANA-MPA’s president and general manager also underlined the need to enforce the special training of journalists covering such events, referring to relevant initiatives by the Greek press unions and the Training Center for the Safety of Journalists in Thessaloniki, of which ANA-MPA is one of the founding members. He added that public awareness of the environment and the understanding of climate change repercussions is necessary, while he pointed out the need for news about natural disasters to be presented in real time and be reliable, something news agencies can guarantee.
Perdirakis also referred to the importance of collaboration between news agencies and other press organizations or environmental agencies for the above, as all participants in the conversation agreed that nobody can face today’s challenges by themselves.
Also participating in the panel were head of Spanish News Agency (EFE) Gabriela Cañas, president of marketing at Turkish Anadolu Agency Erman Yüksel, and the editor in chief of Austrian Press Agency (ARA), Maria Sol.
EANA’s General Assembly meeting unanimously decided, among other things, to elect Fabrice Fries, chairman and CEO of AFP, as the European Alliance’s president, as well as to continue the suspension of the membership of Russia’s Tass agency.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
