2024-04-24 06:44:51
News agencies must guard the source of information from misinformation, but also be a free source of real news. This thesis was presented by the Director General of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) Kiril Valchev during the Delphi Economic Forum today. He participated in a discussion on “Fighting Disinformation in a Multipolar World – Strategies, Tools and Challenges”. Participants in the conversation were also the Secretary General of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) Alexandru Ion Djiboi, the owner of Kosovo Press Skender Krasnici, the Director General of the National News Agency of Romania Agerpress Claudia Victoria Nicolae, Yannick Pasquet from the bureau of “France Press” in Greece, Ilija Moussa of the Federal Information Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the President and General Director of the Athens-Macedonian News Agency AMNA Εmilios Perdikaris.
“The theme ‘The Great Transition’ of the ninth edition of the Delphi Economic Forum is appropriate for a place where, according to Greek mythology, such a ‘great transition’ once took place.” Here the dragon Python guarded a sacred spring and wrapped his serpentine body nine times over Mount Parnassus and seven times over Delphi. Apollo killed Python and released the spring, which became a place for predictions by priestesses called Pythias, after Python. This oracle, with its predictions, began to have a great influence on the course of history and subsequent “great transitions” in it,” said Kiril Valchev.
He posed the question of who today is Python and who is Apollo at the source of information between traditional media (including news agencies) and social networks.
“The Internet looks like Apollo – it frees the source of information and many oracles appear on social networks. And from their words one can get confused just like from the ambiguous answers of Pythias”, pointed out the general director of BTA.
He related that thus Pythias told the king of Lydia, Croesus, that if he attacked the Persians a great kingdom would be destroyed, and Croesus decided that he would destroy Persia. When he lost and blamed it on the Delphic oracle, Pythias said she had in mind the destruction of Croesus’s own kingdom. “Another time Pythias said that wooden walls would save Athens from the Persians, and the Athenians despaired of how they could so quickly build wooden walls around their city. But Themistocles interpreted that the wooden walls were the ships of Athens and the Athenians defeated the Persians near the island of Salamis,” noted Valchev.
In his words, just like the Oracle of Delphi, anyone posting on social media can announce that they meant something different than what everyone else understood. Thus, everything on social networks turns out to be an opinion, an assessment, a forecast, a prediction and can be misinformation.
“Therefore someone must guard the facts as Python guarded the sacred spring at Delphi.” And those guardians of the facts must be the journalists in the traditional media and above all the news agencies. Journalists are a reliable source of information because their main task is to verify it, unlike bloggers, influencers, commentators on the Internet. Media have editorial responsibility unlike social networks. News agencies always refer to a clear source of information, do not make assessments and give context and background,” said Kiril Valchev.
He noted that this is why journalists, and above all those from news agencies, can be called Python – the guardian of the sacred source of information, which Apollo tries to kill and place there oracles of manipulation and misinformation.
“But everyone would rather be Apollo than Python. However, how can journalists, and above all those from news agencies, not be on the side of the old and defeated by the new. Information agencies need to change with new strategy and new tools. We need to understand that we are not the center of the world, as Delphi already knows, that it is not the center of the world, as it was once called,” commented the general director of BTA.
According to him, this means that, first, it is necessary to develop new financing models. “We need to find a new way to fund the battle of real vs. fake news that is free.” Should we keep quiet when someone lies unless someone else is paying us to tell the truth? No, we need to find the balance between information as a human right and information for sale in the market. And we have to find how to treat the lie with more truth, without depending only on the client’s money, but also without media bans, restrictions on social networks and suspension of the Internet and mobile applications, because this is possible for a short time or for a long time, but never forever,” Valchev said.
Second, we must continue to follow professional standards, he noted. “We must continue to provide facts before judgment because that is the standard of real news agencies. We must do our work very responsibly and ethically. It is also important not to spread propaganda, especially that which supports wars and the violation of human rights”, reads part of the statement of the general director of BTA.
“Third, we better use social networks and not fight for money with them. News agencies must be present everywhere on the Internet and in any form – short news, photos, video, audio, infographics… We must especially note that we must provide real news for young people with new formats and technologies. BTA is a good example with its presence not only on Facebook, X and LinkedIn, but also on Instagram, Tik Tok and Threads, which are used by young people,” Valchev pointed out.
In his speech, he also championed the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), making the fourth emphasis that we should use artificial intelligence, not fear it. “Artificial intelligence has great potential for fake news, but also for real news. Information agencies can use it to improve their work: transcriptions, subscriptions, translations, database creation. Using new technologies, we can navigate people in the ocean of news, and the best way to do that is to publish more science news,” he believes.
“Fifth, we need to invest in training the people who work in news agencies. Before we develop artificial intelligence, we need to develop natural human intelligence. Artificial intelligence cannot replace a live reporter at the scene of events, because artificial intelligence works with already accumulated knowledge in the past, but cannot cover the news in the moment. New technologies can only complement journalists, not replace them. But we need to educate journalists on how to use artificial intelligence. Sixth, we must invest in our archives and especially in their digitization. This will allow us to better present the background and context of the news. The BTA has a paper archive from 1898 until the transition to electronic format and is currently digitizing it for ease of use. We must make sure that our news of today does not die, but is preserved for tomorrow. Like Delphi, it protects the archaeological remains, because the lessons of the past are useful for the present and the future,” Valchev said.
In the seventh place, he emphasizes the need to build a working network for cooperation between national information agencies. “This means publishing news from our countries not only from global agencies, but also supplementing it every day with news exchanged by national agencies. Artificial intelligence can help us with this, but we need to build capacity with editors as well. This is important because news agencies are responsible for enabling people around the world to know each other. Knowing and comparing each other is not only an opportunity to profit by using the good practices of others, but also a guarantee of peace. We may not agree with each other, but we must respect each other and find a way to live in peace together without starting wars. Peace should not result from war, but from more information about each other. We need to orientate people in the ocean of news so that they don’t drown in it or it will be the same death that the drought of news due to censorship is causing to the right to information,” noted the director general of BTA.
Eighth, we need cooperation between regional associations of news agencies such as the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA), the Association of Balkan News Agencies – South East Europe (ABNA-UE), etc., he said. According to him, the future of real news versus disinformation depends on cooperation between news agencies from different regions of the world. “We need to make a system where national agencies work closely together. More diverse information will also enable more on-demand sales, which is an opportunity to diversify revenue streams,” Valchev pointed out.
“And on the occasion of what was said here by the General Secretary of EANA, Alexandru Djiboi, that a problem for the media is also official statements in which there are lies, I add a ninth direction for the renewal of information agencies – the separation of the flows of official messages from the news of reporters. BTA has been doing this for two years now,” added the general director of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.
In conclusion, Kiril Valchev explained that whether the news agencies will prove to be capable of change will depend on whether they will remain Pythons – guardians of the source of information or will be like Apollo bearers of light with real news. “But the challenge is for news agencies to guard the source of information from misinformation, but also to be a free source of real news,” he noted.