By Thalif Deen

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) After nearly 50 years as an international wire service, the Rome-based Inter Press Service (IPS) is branching out into WebTV, keeping pace with the latest advances in digital technology.

Announcing the launch of IPS WebTV at RioCentro June 21. Credit: Ana Libisch/IPS

Utilising its current resources and manpower, the new WebTV will draw on more than 400 journalists in 140 countries, many of them with substantial expertise already in the visual media, according to IPS Director-General Mario Lubetkin.

The pilot phase will be launched in early 2013 with daily broadcasts through the web originating from its studios in Rome.

Lubetkin told Terra Viva that the IPS network of journalists, mostly from or based in the global South, will bring a new visual dimension to reporting on issues relating primarily to development, rights, energy, food, civil society, gender empowerment, the environment – and the growing emergence of the South on the multicultural world stage.

“IPS WebTV will be much more than a visual cousin of the print product,” Lubetkin said.

The formal launch, presided over by the President of the U.N. General Assembly Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, took place on the sidelines of the Rio+20 summit of world leaders here.

Also speaking at the launch were Sergio Alli representing the government of Brazil, Omar Resende Peres, president of the IPS Television Board, Carlos Tiburcio, chair of the IPS Core Group of Donors, and René Castro, minister of environment, energy and telecommunications of Costa Rica.

“I am confident that the IPS WebTV that we are launching today would contribute in a meaningful way towards advancing our continuing efforts for global solidarity and cooperation to a higher and more mutually beneficial level,” Al-Nasser said.

“As a media institution primarily focusing on development issues and providing a perspective of the South, (IPS) is making a major contribution towards presenting a balanced view with diversity of perspectives and highlighting the needs of the most vulnerable in the global agenda.”