International Press Exchanges and development In the Post-epidemic era
COVID-19 has been sweeping the globe and global shutdown have harmed economies and civilizations and we are now heading to slow reopenings.
Currently, the world is seeing a drastic reduction in everything, trade interconnection, connectivity, and density among countries.In essence, the pandemic won’t reshape internal relations. The economic impact of COVID-19 may pose an existential threat to journalism.
The current epidemic is having a profound effect on governance the world over. In many parts of the world, simple things like meeting friends is no longer possible. This makes more complex engagement – such as popular protests or social accountability – even more difficult.
The world is working on mitigating the enormous challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, some ideas on what the recovery will require are already emerging.It is certain that it will represent in international development cooperation.
In the post-epidemic era, International Press Exchanges and development will not only be based on capital, labour and technology endowments, but will need to take political, cultural and social issues more into account.
The crisis has been engaging the difficulties in everything in economy, social advancement and getting news and informations for the Myanmar and International press. Especially Myanmar press and media have been seriously affected by the COVID-19. As governments implement lockdowns, social distancing and quarantine measures, all the process of publishment of newspapers, journals, magazines are stopped.
Even though no financial difficulty for the governments issues such as Kyei Mon Newspaper; Myanmar A Lin News- paper (Both in Myanmar and English version), most of the private newspapers and journals cannot be published. Most of all journals have stopped and the market has been lost and Myanmar press and media became jobless and have been facing the difficulties in economy.
In Myanmar, the situation of the Press and Media has been failing since before the COVID-19 and it was getting worse because of COVID-19 and it can be worse in the post-epidemic era. The sustainability and survival of the Press and Media will be in bad situation. Online Media has occupied the Print Media and it has been a great challenge for the worldwide press and media. So we, Press and Media should work integrated with online as well as in print.
The crisis has shown that we must build back hetter. Although the coronavirus has exposed the glaring inequalities the world is facing, it also may be accelerating the uptake of digital solutions, tools and services, as the world struggles to carry on with their daily lives and work on-line. With government and businesses imposing travel restrictions and social distancing measures, digital solutions are allowing telework and online education, and enabling shopping online. This may in fact be accelerating the shift towards a more digital world.
Anyway, we the Mandalay Today Magazine , represented by the Upper Myanmar Journalists Association, has been published every two months, working cooperated with the Mandalay Post News Agency , as the Online Media.
U Htay Aung
Chairman
The Upper Myanmar Journalists Association
Chief Editor ofthe Mandalay Today Magazine
Chief Editor ofthe Mandalay Post News Agency
（Speech by U Htay Aung, Chairman of the Upper Myanmar Journalists Association, from the 2020 Belt & Road Journalists Forum themed Journalism Exchange and Cooperation in the Post Covid-19 Era)