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| Sunday, 17 October 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Media business very competitive - Barry Parker Surekha galagoda and gamini warushamana
The new media age has opened up opportunities for everybody, some have been able to capitalise while some have not. Therefore unlike in the past, everybody from institutions to individuals are potential clients for us said Barry Parker Director South Asia Agence France Presse(AFP). Parker is an experienced Journalist and has been with AFP since 1983. He had got the opportunity of reporting some of the most sensitive political events that shaped the world history. He was based in Delhi and covered Sri Lanka when the country faced a political crisis and as a result the Indian Peace Keeping Force was brought to the country. He was in Kuwait when the first Gulf war broke out. He was in Jerusalam at a time the conflict between the Palestenians and Israelis was at a peak. In 1998 as Bureau chief he was based in Dubai and he was in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was captured. He is a graduate of the Post Graduate School of Journalism UK. "Unlike in the past in the new media age everybody is a potential client. Earlier we only sold news to big institutions but now we also sell to individuals," said Parker. The media business is very competitive as people have access to information unlike in the past. In the industry AFP is competing with two other news agencies Reuters and AP. News is a niche product but it is a cheap product and therefore every news agency loses money. We at AFP earn only 7 percent from news while the rest is earned by selling other products such as financial services and data. The media market is not the same in every region. In general AFP is doing better in the Asian region. In South East Asia AFP is doing better while West Asia is a tough market. The media market is different in every town. He said today there is a huge demand for off beat stories such as lifestyle, technology, people, science, show biz etc which attracts readers from all parts of the globe. In the past political stories and hard economic stories had the highest demand but with changing society light stories have taken centre stage. We at AFP are highly concerned with the accuracy of the news that we produce rather than be the first and report it incorrectly. Therefore AFP verifies it at all times. Our motto is get the story right and tell it correct. Always give a voice to both sides of the story. Media channels are not open in the developing world. Therefore we have to use our resources and give an opportunity for everybody to respond. Balance reporting is a challenge faced by any media institution as media institutions and newspapers are always criticised for unbalanced or biased reporting with political objectives or agenda of political parties. International news agencies are also faced with the same allegations in instances like the first Gulf war, war against terrorism in Afganistan and invasion of Iraq. Parker says that the AFP is getting correct news and reporting it correctly. To balance the news it gets the voice of both sides. for example if the news is from the opposition the government view on the matter is also taken when reporting. But this has to be done within a short time period as the news has to be given out quickly due to the competition in the media industry as every media institution is trying to report the story first. Therefore the balancing depend on the availability of independent or official sources and the access to them. Parker explained that when he was reporting on the Iraqi political situation before the war always news came from the iraqi opposition and it was very difficult to get the official response from the Iraqi government or access to the authorities. During the time he was based in Dubai he got an opportunity to go to Baghdad and had to face protest and criticism from the Iraqi government. However after explaining the situation they resolved a method and AFP agreed to get the response of Iraqi government or second view from independent sources when reporting such an event. The other reason for this kind of criticism is the various interpretations and reproductiosn of what the news agencies report by the media. As they have different objectives and agendas there is a possibility of distorting or biased re-reporting. The news agency cannot do anything in this regard and there are thousands of newspapers in different languages. There is criticism that the five news agencies owned by the developed countries dominate information and thereby create a world opinion. Parker denying this criticism said that though there are only few news agencies they cannot dominate the world opinion as news dominates the world. He agreed that all big news agencies are owned by the developed countries. But Parker says that the news and users are dominating the media market. AFP doesnt have any political agenda. But it is true the some media organisations are working with political agendas. It is true even in developed countries. Some media institutions are supporting political parties at elections. Sometimes they are changing. As far as AFP is concerned our reporters represent various nationalties. In Sri lanka Amal (Amal Jayasinghe - AFP correspondent in Sri Lanka) e-mail the news to Hong-kong. Our Hong-Kong editor within 5 minuts distribute the news to the whole world. In our Jerusalm office there are palastenian as well as Isrial correspondents. So how do we work on a political agenda? Parker questioned. However AFP has experienced this sort of criticisms. Parker says that once Israil Government made a big shout against AFP saying it is staging terrorism. Parker explained the incident which happened at the Raffa camp that was reported by Palastine reporter and a photographer of AFP. They only reported the news as they happened to be there but it was interpreted as it was staged by AFP for reporting purposes. AFP covers Sri Lanka from 1950s from its India office. In 1987 it opened its Sri lanka office in Colombo. Parker highly apreciated the talents of Sri Lankan journalist Amal Jayasinghe in AFP. Mr Parker was on a short visit to Sri Lanka to review the AFP operaions in Sri Lanka,meet officials to get their views on improving the coverage as well as the product and also to boost themselves. AFP is a non profit making organisationa and was formed by an act of Parliament. Headquartered in Paris there are staff employed by the headquarters (1400) regional and local staff who work on either full time, part time or as stringers. The services of AFP include photos, graphics, video content and language service. The major service is French while there are services in English, spanish, German and many other languages. The biggest arabic service in the world is also maintained by AFP. At present AFP prints about 250,000 words a day in English. |
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