The 6th Summit of the major international news agencies will take place in St. Petersburg at SPIEF 2019. The Russian News Agency TASS organizes the event. This year, the leaders and journalists of all the leading Chinese media, the long-term partners of TASS, will join the event. The Summit will bring together over 60 participants from nearly 30 countries.
Traditionally, the Summit discusses the most important topics of the world media industry. Among them is the transformation of the profession of a journalist on a backdrop of whirlwind technological developments, the impact of artificial intelligence and many others.
The Summit’s programme at SPIEF 2019 includes the TASS panel session ‘Is the Media a Participant or an Observer in Global Conflicts?’
TASS Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman and Press Association Chief Executive Officer Clive Marshall will moderate the session. Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao, Canadian Press president Malcolm Kirk, Associated Press president Gary Pruitt, TASS Director General Sergei Mikhailov and other top officials from leading news agencies are invited to participate in the meeting.
The summit participants will discuss the media status in the 21st century and the key challenges facing the world’s media today, the boundaries where professional ethics become civil and universal. The fourth pillar of power is mainly responsible for maintaining world peace. «Today it is the media that is a battlefield in the war between good and evil,» added Sergei Mikhailov, TASS Director General.
One of the main discussion topics is the question of whether the media today are merely observers of global affairs, covering international conflicts in an unbiased manner, or whether the press is a participant in disputes, and at times even a full-fledged belligerent party. Summit participants will also discuss the influence of the media on the outcome of information wars, the number of which multiplied in the tech age.
The panel session will be held on 6 June, whereas the Summit will concur with the SPIEF 2019 dates, 6–8 June.
