The Emirates News Agency (WAM) organized a roundtable entitled “Shaping Economic Narratives: The Role of News Agencies” as part of Day 1 of the World Governments Summit (WGS) 2024, which kicked off today.

The event was attended by several officials and directors of news agencies from the Arab region, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), WAM reports.

The roundtable highlighted the role of news agencies in supporting future economies, promoting innovative business concepts, and their readiness to deal with emerging economic sectors. It also emphasized the role of media professionals in future business journalism and the importance of media partnerships in boosting experience exchange and upskilling young media professionals.

Mohamed Jalal Alrayssi, Director-General of WAM, stressed the key role of news agencies in promoting future business concepts and conveying them to the public effectively. He noted that the media sector is seeing remarkable advancements in keeping with global technological developments, with the emergence of new technologies in media work utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and data, which will shape the future of business media.

The roundtable highlighted four key issues: the importance of engaging with new economic sectors, the challenges and opportunities arising from these sectors, ways to improve business journalism, and strengthening strategic partnerships between news agencies and various media outlets.

Highlighting the roundtable’s outcomes, the Director-General of WAM explained that the meeting culminated in several recommendations, including the need to train and upskill workers in news agencies and media outlets by concluding partnerships with government and private institutions concerned with business affairs to train journalists on how to deal with data and information related to contemporary economic concepts, including the green economy, digital currencies, and AI.

Mohammed Abd Rabbo Al Yami, Director-General of the Union of OIC News Agencies (UNA), stressed the leading role of news agencies spotlighting new economic models despite challenges. He underscored the need to keep pace with the shifts seen across the contemporary media sector and adapt to new technological developments.

The need to ensure news agencies’ current capabilities and readiness to cover and interact with emerging economic sectors such as green energy, cryptocurrencies, and industries based on AI was noted.

A.Mashrabkhanov, UzA