RIYADH, 20 February 2020 (WAM) — The Saudi Media Forum kicked off its second edition today in Riyadh with the participation and attendance of more than 1,500 media professionals, academics and experts from Arab and international countries, ministers. and local and international authorities to discuss many issues related to the media sector, its reality and its future.
Executive Director of News Content Department at Emirates News Agency “WAM” Forum Mr. Abdullah Abdul Karim represented.

At the opening of the forum, Mohammed bin Fahd Al-Harthy, Chairman of the Radio and Television Commission and Chairman of the Saudi Media Council, noted the importance of the forum being held under the slogan “Media in a Developing World”.
And Mr. Abdullah Abdul Karim, while participating in a session on the future of news agencies, affirmed that there is an increasing reliance on news agencies as a reliable source of current status news and accurate information, and public trust is increasing. and various media to obtain information and news from news organizations, there are three main factors that have enhanced the credibility and role of news organizations as a major source of information and news, the first of which is the prevalence of false news. and rumors through social media, and secondly, crisis factors including the Covid-19 pandemic have increased the public’s and various media’s dependence on news organizations as the primary source of information related to the pandemic, he explained. Emirates News Agency played a key role in managing media content published by official authorities related to the “Corona” crisis, and “WAM” was interested in providing information, developments and results to the public and various media during the crisis. Corona crisis.

He noted that a third factor that strengthened the position and role of news organizations was their ability to adapt technology and digital media to their advantage, which opened wide horizons for spreading and expanding their subscriber base. Serving the public and the media.

Abdullah Abdul Karim explained the strategy of Emirates News Agency in the next stage, “WAM” strategy focuses on creating new global partnerships, which indicates that “WAM” tried to consolidate its relationship with major regional and international media through its new strategy. Companies. It seeks to add new languages, bringing the number of languages ​​in which the agency’s messages are broadcast to 19, addressing many minds and communities around the world, and these languages ​​include Arabic, English, Chinese, French. , German, Spanish, Persian, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian and others.

He pointed to the agency’s interest in promoting digital transformation as the WAM news system was recently launched to increase the efficiency and accessibility of news content to subscribers. The company seeks to increase the number of documentaries it produces and releases, and distributes them through strategic partners in various countries around the world.