Telam President Bernarda Llorente speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 7, 2023. (Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua)
BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The fifth World Media Summit is a fundamental platform for building cooperation and mutual trust among world media in a global context that needs certainty, said Bernarda Llorente, president of Telam, Argentina's official news agency.
"Expectations about the summit are enormous, because it comes at a time of global media changes," Llorente told Xinhua in a recent interview before heading for China's Guangzhou to attend the summit hosted by Xinhua on Dec. 2-8.
"It is important (for everyone) to know where to go and to listen to the experiences of different countries about what they are doing, and above all, how they are planning for the future," the president said.
"I believe that the future of the media has a lot to do with cooperation between countries, interpersonal and intercompany relations, and especially with being able to think together, listen to experiences and, in times of such uncertainty, be able to define together some certainties," she added.
"Communication is much more than just listening to each other, it's also about establishing bonds of trust," Llorente said. "I think the summit basically serves that purpose. So I hope it will be a success."
Highlighting the importance of South-South communication, she said "communication between underdeveloped countries or medium-sized countries is fundamental to starting building other types of relations, much less asymmetrical, and above all, to be able to contribute to other types of information and knowledge of our citizens."
Llorente praised the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind proposed by China and Chinese modernization, saying that the world can learn from the development paradigm "that has translated into the welfare of millions of Chinese citizens."
"We are at a pivotal moment in humanity," she said, adding that to address the challenges, "the only way is through common will."
Speaking of the first cooperation agreement between Telam and Xinhua 38 years ago, Llorente said she highly prizes the long-standing relations between the two agencies.
She expected "renewed efforts" in the future to "continue deepening our mutual knowledge, have a common language and be able to speak to audiences that are increasingly wider, but also more segmented."
She called for building "closeness and understanding" between the people of China and Argentina.
"More formal information is not enough for us," the president said. "I believe that we have to work a lot on the knowledge of daily life, the idiosyncrasies, the feelings of each people, their expectations and hopes."
"We have to make a more personalized and human communication to make a greater flow of information on major issues," Llorente said. ■
Editors work at a newsroom of Telam in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 7, 2023. (Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua)
