(VOVworld) – A 2-day seminar on news source verification by press agencies opened yesterday in the northern province of Hai Duong. The seminar is jointly sponsored by the Project Management Unit of the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Swedish Embassy, and FOJO – a Swedish media development organization. It brings together Swedish journalism expert Anette Novak, leaders and about 60 editors and subeditors of Vietnam’s largest media agencies. In Vietnam, there are currently 800 media agencies and 17,000 journalists, who publish an enormous amount of news every day. The seminar will consider suggestions that there should be penalties for infringing privacy and or citing unverified sources. Some have suggested specific steps for a news assessment process that uses evaluation sheets and cross checking.