PARIS (AFP) — Agence France-Presse, the international news agency, on Thursday launched the AFP Foundation to train journalists in developing countries and help humanitarian groups and other enterprises with media training.
The agency has given its foundation, which will be based at the AFP headquarters in Paris, the aim of promoting higher standards of journalism around the world.
As well as training services, the new foundation will provide educational materials for schools and universities and organize seminars on press freedom and other media issues.
"The AFP Foundation is an extension of our basic mission, which is to report the news objectively and impartially," said Pierre Louette, chairman and chief executive of AFP, the world's oldest news agency.
"Like its parent company, the AFP Foundation will bring greater international perspective and depth to the news business," added Louette.
"With its rich history, extensive network and multi-cultural tradition, noone is better placed than AFP to pass on the core values of journalism to new generations of reporters, editors and communications officers."
Robert Holloway, who will direct the foundation, said "international organizations, the UN, European Union and others, increasingly recognize a free and independent press as playing an essential role in good governance and social and economic development.
"Our job is not to be a crusading enterprise, we are only there to train and to raise professional standards, but we recognize and hope that this will contribute to the aims of those international organizations."
On top of its training work, the AFP Foundation will organize seminars to debate press freedom, ethics and other vital questions. It will support efforts to improve working conditions for journalists, particularly in hazardous areas, and to elevate the status of women in the news media.
The foundation will offer services in English, French, Arabic and Spanish, drawing on the resources of the news agency, which has correspondents and photographers in 165 countries.
Louette heads the AFP Foundation's six-member board that also includes Edward Mortimer, senior vice president of the Salzburg Seminar, an international affairs forum, Salil Shetty, director of the UN Millennium Campaign, and senior AFP journalists Randa Habib, Annie Thomas and Peter Mackler.
The foundation has already trained journalists and graphic artists in Tunisia and last month carried out a project, funded by the UN Development Programme, to train 40 journalists and photographers in Syria.
Holloway, AFP's deputy managing editor, went on: "The philosophy underlying our work is that those who benefit from training should be able to pass on what they have learned to their colleagues and to younger generations.
"We see it as part of our mission to teach those who may become tomorrow's teachers."
He said training would be conducted by senior staff from the AFP network or outside experts.
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