U Ye Htut, the Minister of Information announced that the Ministry of Information (MOI) will, in future, support ethnic media groups as much as possible.
Meeting between Ministry of Information
and ethnic media groups
(Photo: Ye Htut Facebook)
He made the announcement at a Naypyitaw meeting between ethnic media and MOI representatives held on 13 October, according to U Zin Linn, head of the News Quality Assessment Team (NQAT) at ethnic media umbrella organisation Burma News International (BNI).
The development of ethnic media organisations and the difficulties they face were among the topics discussed at the meeting.
U Zin Linn said: "It [the meeting] was mainly focused on the development of ethnic news media organisations. Then, the difficulties that ethnic media groups have to face was also discussed. When our side discussed this, U Ye Htut said the MOI will support them as best as possible, but, he did not say exactly what the MOI will help with and what it will support. He said roughly that the MOI will help and that each ethnic media group’s needs are not the same."
According to the ethnic media groups present at the meeting other topics discussed included the lack of reporters, the scarcity of technical equipment, the interruption of reporting due to bad roads and communications, and the difficulties of news printing.
The MOI said it will do its best to provide support to the ethnic media groups and in return the groups agreed to attend MOI provided training. The MOI also proposed that ,if the ethnic media groups agreed, they could exchange information.
U Ye Htut wrote on his Facebook page: "Today [13 October], we met with some ethnic media groups, including BNI, in cooperation with Mizzima News. The main topic that we discussed was financial support for the development of newspapers and journals in ethnic languages. Regarding information transfer, it is necessary to set basic policy and standards. After recognising the standards, the MOI will plan support for the ethnic media groups in exchange for complying with recognized standards."
This was the first ever meeting between the MOI and ethnic media groups. 25 representatives from BNI's member organisations attended the meeting. They included representatives from the Thanlwin Times, the Kantarawaddy Times, Mizzima News and Chin World.
Reporter Aik Sai for IMNA
Edited in English by Mark inkey for BNI
