MINSK, 22 November (BelTA) – The Union State of Russia and Belarus will embark on the creation of a common media holding and a website in the coming days, Secretary of State of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev said at the Russian-Belarusian media expert forum “Union State: Information Space in the Digital Age”, TASS reports.
“In the coming days, we will get down to developing a model of a media holding company. Of course, this will also include a website that might embrace some modern solutions to help us communicate information to millions of people,” Dmitry Mezentsev said.
In turn, Chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia (UJR) Vladimir Soloviev said that a common media holding company of Belarus and Russia can be set up in the foreseeable future, however, it is necessary to remove some legal barriers. He recalled that the proposal to create a media holding company of the Union State was put forward by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko at the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State on 4 November. “Aleksandr Lukashenko announced a possibility of creating a powerful joint media holding company. And this is something we all should think about, we should decide what it will be like, remove all legal obstacles and barriers,” Vladimir Soloviev said.
According to him, the holding company should operate in all media settings. “It is imperative to be present in all modern digital media, of course, in all public spaces, in all social media, in Telegram, on YouTube and even in TikTok, there is no escaping it. And of course, this must be foreseen in advance, including in the budget,” he noted.
The UJR head also noted that the journalists' unions of the two countries closely interact with each other. “We have maintained friendly and fraternal contacts with the Belarusian Union of Journalists for many years. We keep in touch all the time, fairly large delegations of Belarusian journalists attend the world's largest media forum in Sochi ... We have arranged round tables there more than once to discuss how to promote a joint information space. We will continue to do this in the future,” Vladimir Soloviev added.
