MOSCOW, February 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Surveys of the world’s mass media community will help better understand picture of the world, Itar-Tass Director-General and president of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies Sergei Mikhailov said on Wednesday, demonstrating the results of the first ever news media poll initiated by his news agency.

“Many media outlets and professional agencies conduct their polls. However, we cannot but note that in these surveys we practically see no opinion of the professional information society and leading news agencies from different countries that give a full picture of events to the world round-the-clock,” Mikhailov said. “We speak of newsmakers, but who does broadcast newsmakers? These are information and news agencies.”

He added that representatives of these media outlets “are best informed structures.”

Inviting news agencies to choose a number one politician, scientist and cultural figure, initiators of the survey “found it interesting to know opinions of their colleagues and look into their view of the world,” the Itar-Tass head said, adding that politics, science and culture proved to be those spheres of human activity that “today exert the biggest influence on our civilization and attract newsmakers’ constant attention.”

“After the World Congress of News Agencies was created, we started to communicate more often and to speak of trends and problems of the information space more often,” he said. “In this respect our intention to unite once again to take a look at the last year is quite logic.”

Mikhailov also acknowledged that many existing ratings and surveys focus either on a regional snapshot or the so-called “golden billion” snapshot, mostly advanced in terms of communication.

“We tried to encompass practically all countries of the world, which have news agencies and services. Two hundred and sixty-five news agencies and news websites from 84 countries received the invitation to express their opinion,” he said, expressing the hope that this survey would not be the last one.

“There are several opinions on how this project will further develop,” Mikhailov said. “We are set to present the project at our international meetings of news agencies. May be, we will improve some criteria and methods, but I hope this project will be continued.”

According to the survey, representatives of the global media society named Russian President Vladimir Putin as world politician number one, Nobel laureate, British physicist Peter Higgs as scientist of 2013 and Nobel laureate, Canadian writer Alice Munro as number one cultural figure.