The South Sudan National Editors’ Forum (NEF) has become a member of the East Africa’s Editors’ Forum, says NEF chairman Koang Pal.

In a statement, Mr Koang says the admission stems from an interactive meeting with their counterpart, the Kenya Editors’ Guild in Nairobi Kenya last week.

Speaking to a group of editors from South Sudan in Nairobi recently, the Kenyan Editors’ Guild Assistant Secretary, Mr. Hassan Kulundu announced that the South Sudan editors’ body is officially admitted to the regional body.

“There are no requirements needed for you to join your brothers in East Africa, since you are now part of East Africa. With honor, you are automatically admitted into this larger body of shapers of nations,” Kulundu said.

This comes months after the East African Community formally admitted South Sudan as a member of the economic bloc.

The East African Editors’ Forum is a nonprofit making organization that brings together the most senior print, magazine, broadcast and other electronic media editors in the region. The Forum commits itself to a program of action to defend and promote media freedom and independence.

The chairman of NEF, Koang Pal Chang said that the admission to the regional forum would contribute towards the defense and promotion of media freedom and independence in the country and Africa at large.

“This membership will help our editors to participate in media activities in the region and beyond, where South Sudanese themselves can be able to tell their own stories. It will also lead to growth of our network; enhance cooperation, as well as communication. Our membership in this Forum will help us uphold the highest standards of professionalism and ethics in journalism,” Mr Koang said.

The East African Editors’ Forum has also extended an invitation to NEF to participate in the African Union Summit in Kigali this month to celebrate the “Year of Human Rights with Particular focus on the rights of Women.”

South Sudan’s Editors’ Forum is a non-profit organization, whose members are editors-in-chief, managing editors, editorial directors, program editors, production editors, assignment editors, website/online editors, radio directors and editors and media houses supervisors. The objective of the NEF is to defend freedom of expression and promote journalistic ethics and diversity in the media in South Sudan.

The NEF has 9 executive council members, with 21 full members from various media houses. In March this year, the NEF carried out assessment on editors in 23 media houses in Juba and recorded a total of 42 editors with at least one or three editors for each media house visited.

Among media houses visited by NEF in Juba were 16 newspapers and 7 radio stations including public broadcasting radio and TV stations.

With financial support from UNESCO, Mr Koang said the NEF would soon roll out the production of editorial guides for ten media houses in the country.

For matters to do with financial and other human resource constraints, Mr Koang continued, almost all media houses in the country don’t have their own editorial policies that regulate their work.

“the NEF ensures that it fills this gap,” he said.