Lao media officials post a group photo with Deputy Secretary, Ms Katrina Cooper at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs.

Lao, Australian media experts share ways to produce interesting news content

Visiting the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) even for a few hours helped answer many questions about what one should or shouldn’t do to produce interesting news content for audiences using a new platform such as social media. 
Two Lao senior media officials from the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I exchanged lessons with members of the two popular Australian media outlets during a visit led by the Australian Embassy’s First Secretary, (Regional and Public Affairs), Mr James Dillion. The trip was supported by the Australian government under a Special Visits Programme. 
Mr James Dillon has worked tirelessly in leading Lao officials whose members have learnt a lot from their exchanges with their Australian counterparts. He has quickly stepped in whenever Lao delegates have needed help with many things that make such study tours successful. Mr James Dillon has done a good job and we take this opportunity to say thanks to him one more time.
All the delegates are happy with this important study tour, and we will keep using the lessons we learned during our visit at our work places.
We would also like to thank the ministries of information, culture and tourism and foreign affairs and the Australian Embassy in Vientiane as well as the Australian government for giving us a chance to visit and exchange useful lessons with our Australian friends, which helped update our knowledge about the media.
The Director General of the Mass Media Department, Mr Somsavath Phongsa, and I are Australian alumni. We both got a scholarship from the Australian government to study in a nice and peaceful place such as Australia more than 20 years ago, and we had an opportunity to return to the country again.
We felt like we had returned to our “university home”, from our time as students in Australia more than two decades ago. But it was a little different this time around, as we didn’t attend classes with professors and get assignments from them.
The Deputy Director General of the Media Department of the ministry of foreign affairs, Mr Kaseumsack  Saysouriya, was very excited to visit Australia for the first time. He has worked in several foreign countries as a diplomat. “I like Australia. It is a nice and peaceful country and the people are very friendly,” Mr Kaseumsack said.
We stayed in Australia for a week and visited the three major cities of Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne to share our experiences in the field of media in Laos with the Australian media and other relevant sectors. We also reviewed old lessons and updated our knowledge in order to provide useful information to audiences in Laos in the ICT age.
We spent our time at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service to share lessons with our Australian counterparts. Each side was interested in the other’s media sector and wanted to know the role the media plays in each country, especially in providing information to audiences through new platforms such as social media.
Both sides accepted that social media is a new challenge for media personnel in Laos and Australia, and the existing media system has to adjust to this new platform as quickly as possible while producing content for audiences in and outside the country by using social media.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts news in four languages via TV, radio and internet, while the Special Broadcasting Service provides more than 60 communities with services in their own language to contribute to an inclusive and cohesive society.
The Australian government fully supports the ABC and provides facilities for it to produce news content focused on international audiences, while SBS receives 70 percent of its funding from the government. The SBS, whose role is to produce news content for local audiences, earns 30 percent of its budget from advertisements to support several of its activities.
At the offices of both media outlets, senior editors and managers provided very useful information about news gathering that can be adjusted and used in Laos.
I exchanged lessons with my Australian counterparts, especially regarding producing news content for local and international audiences and the management of newsrooms.
Of course, there is a difference to producing news content for local and international audiences, and much depends on the target audience. The process of writing news and feature stories for social media is the same, especially if media personnel have done a journalism course at school. “Nothing changes in the elements of writing news and features. We [media] need to adjust to a new platform to produce news,” said a senior media personnel at ABC.
“Capacity building for media is very important and time is needed to adjust to a new platform due to the use of new technology and the way of communicating through social media. When we are not familiar with new tools, we have to learn. There is no choice,” he said.
I learnt a lot from my Australian friends at ABC and SBS during the visit. The Australian media use modern equipment as a key tool in producing programmes for TV, radio and internet.
Apart from visiting these two media outlets, we visited the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to discuss several interesting topics and to prepare Laos to host the Asean Summit in 2024. Laos and Australia are currently celebrating the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties and there is also close cooperation through Laos’ roles as Australia’s country coordinator for Asean.

By Phon Thikeo
(Latest Update June 21, 2022)