The discussion, held at Summit Park View in Yangon on Tuesday, had witnessed the participation of MPC chairmen U Khin Maung Lay (Phoe Thauk-kyar) along with several MPC members and 18 ethnic media groups’ editors.

The MPC chairman pointed out that he wanted to encourage the ethnic media outlets based in border areas of Burma as those can play a vital role for their dedicated audience similar to the mainstream media houses.

The participating editors presented their point of views and also difficulties to run their media groups in various ethnic areas of Burma.

Seng Mai of Myinkyina journal said in an interview that she has expected such a meeting by the MPC earlier. Anyhow, she welcomed the initiative as it was advantageous for the ethnic media workers.

“Lot of conflicts is still going on in ethnic areas of Burma. We face many problems gathering correct information from government officials and ethnic armed groups. Sometime we face threats on our lives. We took advantage of the meet to narrate our difficulties while collecting accurate news from those areas,” she added.

Apart from the difficulties of news gathering, the ethnic editors also highlighted the financial crisis, sustainable technical knowhow, and safety of working journalists etc. in the roundtable.

MPC member U Myint Kyaw informed that the ethnic media editors raised many issues to ponder in the meeting. Many issues were related to the MPC and it would try to resolve those matters. However some issues were relevant to the government and the MPC would put forward the matters very soon.