News leaders on balancing breaking and evergreen news

“Maybe we don’t have to choose between 100% breaking news and 100% soft news. Maybe we need to be grey — and balance both,” said TRT Türkiye’s News Coordinator, Ahmet Görmez, while moderating a high-level news executive discussion on the direction of the Asiavision (AVN) news exchange at the 2025 Global News Forum.

Ahmet, who also serves as Chair of the ABU News Group, highlighted that stories like snow volleyball and flamingos were top performers during the AVN Panel Discussion titled “Issues of the Past Year and Priorities for the Next 12 Months.”

On the topic of content types most valuable to members — and more importantly, what is actually being used — ABC Australia’s International Services Manager, Nesryn Bouziane, noted, “while breaking news might be the ideal content to access on AVN, it’s not what gets downloaded the most.” Nesryn, also the Vice Chair of the ABU News Group, raised concerns about content losing its value when uploaded late.

“We need to understand the challenges of producing and uploading content in real time,” she said. “Sometimes, breaking stories only appear on AVN after they’ve lost their impact.”
FBC Fiji’s News Director, Indra Singh, added that even 15 to 30 seconds of raw footage can help other members craft a story, especially during breaking news.

NHK Japan’s Head of International News, Fumitaka Sato, provided a cultural perspective. “People are tired of endless bad news,” he said. Fumitaka, also Vice Chair of the ABU News Group, emphasized the growing appetite for ‘slow news’ — stories that are relaxing, visually rich, and emotionally resonant.

During the session, several suggestions and pieces of feedback were gathered from the floor. For instance, ABC Australia’s Managing Editor, Matthew O’Sullivan, suggested that providing high-quality raw footage and interviews — rather than full packages — could make AVN more useful, especially when members want to produce their own versions of stories in local languages.

TV5 Mongolia and PSM Maldives offered a different perspective: as smaller broadcasters, they rely heavily on AVN for international news and soft features but struggle to produce content that gets downloaded by others.

In response, Indra noted, “small island nations have a massive opportunity to shape global narratives on climate.”