A media session, “Russia – Islamic World: Media Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Economic Prosperity”, was held in Kazan today as part of the Russia – Islamic World: KazanForum 2023 International Economic Forum.
The media session was moderated by Anna Belikova, advisor to the Group of Strategic Vision «Russia – Islamic World», senior lecturer at Moscow State University, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and Moscow State Institute of International Relations, chief external communications officer at RT, and Yunus Inayat, director of international relations and strategic development at the Union of OIC News Agencies.
The event was attended by Mohammed Al-Yami, director general of the Union of OIC News Agencies; Aidar Salimgarayev, head of the Tatmedia Republican Press and Mass Communications Agency; Waji Sindi, director of the Information Development Department of OIC, UAE; Farit Mukhametshin, deputy chairman of the Group of Strategic Vision «Russia – Islamic World», deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs; Fatima Al-Salem, director general of the Kuwait News Agency; Timur Shafir, secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia, head of the Union’s International Department; Najeh Missaoui, president and director general of Tunis Afrique Presse News Agency; Mikhail Gusman, first deputy director general of TASS; Latifa El Bouabdellaoui, director general of the Morocco Islamic Centre for Trade Development; Dinara Toktosunova, head of Ruptly Video Agency, and others. Heads of OIC largest news agencies together with their Russian counterparts discussed peculiarities of ‘media diplomacy’ within the framework of the economic forum.
Central to the discussion were questions about the stage of cooperation between mass media in the Russian Federation and countries of the Islamic world; about joint programs and projects being implemented in media sphere and plans for the future; about additional measures for more effective media cooperation; about common ground between journalists and bloggers from Russia and the Muslim world.
The media session was organized by the OIC Union of News Agencies and Tatmedia Republican Press and Mass Communications Agency.
Media is now the driving force behind sustainable development and economic partnership between countries. This is the reason why media cooperation in the current context is as good as state diplomacy and can lead to weakening of Western media monopoly, ensuring equal access to information and countering polarization of mass media. In this regard, Russia advocates for active dialogue with Muslim countries to combat common information threats.
In his speech, Yunus Inayat pointed out the importance of this event for fruitful and equal international cooperation of news agencies.
In his turn, Mohammed Al-Yami drew attention of the participants of the extended session to the priority tasks of the session. In his opinion, the main ones include rapprochement of media of Russia and Arab countries on the basis of spiritual and moral values, justice, as well as building bridges between mass media around the world and strengthening cooperation between information agencies and OIC.
“An important goal of this event is to find common ground for humanitarian and economic cooperation. The Islamic component in Russia, which reflects the unique culture of peoples living in the country, harmonizes perfectly with the Russian culture. This is a unique occasion that contributes to building humanitarian bridges with Asian countries,” Waji Sindi said.
“We hope to build active positive economic cooperation, to implement joint media projects, which cannot but have an impact on improving the quality of people’s lives. And mass media plays an important role in this,” the director of the OIC Information Development Department added.
Speaking at the media session, Farit Mukhametshin drew attention of the audience to the uniqueness of the forum, which is being held for the first time at the federal level and for which Kazan has been chosen as the venue.
He also recalled the formation of a new, just multipolar world order, based on genuine sovereignty of peoples and civilizational diversity.
“The collective West has launched a war against those states that do not accept its hegemony. It is important for us not only to oppose attempts to establish a dictatorship, but also to fight against fakes. And this can only be achieved by joint efforts. Here Islamic mass media has a special role to play, since we have close approaches and common traditional spiritual and moral values. Joint projects that would fight against ultra-liberal attitudes and Islamophobia and would encourage religious tolerance and strengthen the work of the best Russian practices of peaceful coexistence among peoples are important,” he said.
Anna Belikova spoke about the fact that the Group of Strategic Vision «Russia – Islamic World» is one of the key players in media field of Russia’s interaction with the Islamic world.
She recalled the main milestones of the Group’s development, the agreements signed, in particular, between OIC and Novosti Russian News Agency, and the cooperation between OIC and RT Ruptly Agency.
It was also mentioned that OIC intends to establish a protocol with TASS Agency to introduce the achievements of the cultures and economies of the Islamic world.
For his part, Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia Timur Shafir noted the importance of creating common platforms and active use of Russian in Arab mass media. “In addition to agreements with agencies, there are plans to establish a permanent journalistic club with headquarters based in Moscow. Its events could take place in other Russian cities as well as abroad, but permanent platform with major forums, meetings, seminars and language courses should be in Moscow. This is the next starting point, on the basis of which the ongoing work can continue,” Timur Shafir shared the news.
Director General of the Morocco Islamic Centre for Trade Development Latifa El Bouabdellaoui spoke in her report about an important role of journalism in the development of trade and investment. “Journalism is no less than responsible for the development of people’s well-being, namely investment in information, exploring trade relations and cultural rapprochement of countries. Mass media should be responsible for information, be objective. Mass media can address issues of poverty, good education available to all countries, equality between sexes and social justice. It is important for mass media to meet today’s challenges and resist distortion of facts, concealment of objective information for self-serving purposes, fight against fake news as the latter changes pricing and trends in global economy, which can lead to bad consequences for the stability of the state,” she stated.
Head of Ruptly Video Agency Dinara Toktosunova shared with the session participants the important directions of the agency. She noted that Ruptly hosts 6-7 live broadcasts simultaneously in the Russian, English, Arabic, German, French and Spanish languages.
“Our goal is to quickly offer quality demanded video content to the audience, making it available to large and small media, as well as to independent bloggers and individual content producers with modest technical and financial resources. The news is carried from the mobile phone as soon as an event occurs. And beyond that we help clients spread the word through Ruptly Live platform, which makes it possible to use up to nine video streams simultaneously in just three clicks, with translations into different languages. In addition to it, Ruptly has set up a special verification department to verify, with the help of available and inaccessible software, the source from which we get the information, the place where we it happens and the date. And by these three components we can already see. Recently, information was circulated about a man who managed to survive under the rubble in Syria. We found out it was fake, the video is old,” the head of Ruptly Video Agency concluded.
All the participants in the media session concluded that in the current context, media cooperation, known as ‘media diplomacy’, facilitates to the diplomatic efforts of states, ensures equitable access to information and counteracts political manipulation in media.