That’s a first: Myanmar’s new Minister of Information tells state papers to report real news

The National League for Democracy’s Pe Myint has only had the Ministry of Information for a few days, but he is already making some interesting moves.

Meeting over the weekend in Yangon with reporters and staff at state-owned newspapers, Pe Myint urged the outlets to rely less on press releases and more on what he called “public-facing content.”

His comments were reported in the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar, one of the papers presumably represented at the meeting, which took place at the city’s Printing and Publishing Department.

In the words of the article, Myanmar’s new Minister of Information, a writer himself, told state-owned papers to “focus on news that combats weaknesses, shortages and inconveniences in dealing with governmental departments.”

In other words, he told them to focus on real news.

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