Ulaanbaatar
“Accuracy of news is more important than the promptness”
PoliticsUlaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On the occasion of the historic 95th anniversary of MONTSAME, the first news agency of Mongolia, a scientific conference was held at the information center of the agency on July 22. Keynote speakers were the director A.Baatarkhuyag, former director T.Baasansuren, former director and incumbent Executive Director of the Confederation of Mongolian Journalists S.Altantsetseg, former director Ch.Erdene and the deputy director Sh.Batbold.
Mr Baasansuren talked about the “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” of Mongolia’s first telegraphic news agency MONTSAME, first established as MONTA in 1921. He concluded that MONTSAME has made essential contributions to the Mongolian journalism and made the first steps of (1) introducing to Mongolia’s journalism the promptness and simplicity of news reporting, (2) promoting and reporting about Mongolia in the world’s most common languages, (3) delivering news about important events in the international arena to the domestic audience, (4) engraining the professional news writing and set the trend and perspective, (5) compiling the chronicles of events in Mongolia’s history, (6) in dispatching the information about all of the latest and contemporary ideas and inventions and (7) in updating the design of newspapers and journals in Mongolia.
He highlighted that Mongolia were leading the Asian countries by its press freedom until 2000’s, since when the press freedom has been degraded.
MONTSAME has lost its status as a regulatory agency of the Government of Mongolia in 1998 and became a public media organization in accordance with the Law on Freedom of Media.
The issue of the agency’s status was elaborated by the next speakers, as well. Executive Director of the Confederation of Journalists S.Altantsetseg and the director of MONTSAME A.Baatarkhuyag raised concern about the agency’s challenges and outlook.
Former director S.Altantsetseg said: “Accuracy of the news is more important than the promptness”, in these times of fast-paced development of information technology.
