The dinosaurs of Arab media – the government news agencies – gathered for their 40th conference yesterday in an appropriate venue: Bahrain.

These agencies are one of the last outposts of an archaic style of journalism that speaks with a tone of authority and an almost complete lack of credibility. Their main task is to produce unreadable (but sometimes unintentionally entertaining) reports on matters of little or no interest to anyone except the governments they represent: telegrams exchanged by heads of state congratulating each other on anniversaries, recovery from illnesses, etc, and statements from ministers assuring the country that everything is fine, despite any appearances to the contrary.

Another of their tasks is to denounce more interesting stories that appear in other news media. Such stories, as they constantly remind the public, are fabrications with "no basis in fact" circulated by "foreign hands" that seek to undermine the country's "security, stability and social unity". Since the actual content of these "fabrications" is rarely if ever mentioned (lest someone might be tempted to believe them) and the sinister foreign hands behind them are never identified, it is often very difficult to work out what their reports are talking about.

According to the Bahrain News Agency, the conference will award a prize for "the best report prepared by Arab news agencies". This is going to be a very tough call, and I can't wait to read the winning report. The Syrian news agency, SANA, certainly deserves some kind of award – if only for perseverance in trying to present an air of normality in the face of what it describes as "recent events".

Such was the anticipation ahead of the Bahrain conference that Dr Farid Ayyar, secretary-general of the umbrella organisation, the Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA), arrived two days early – an event duly reported by the Bahrain News Agency. A day later, the Kuwait News Agency issued a 200-word report announcing that Sheikh Mubarak al-Sabah, chairman and director-general of the Kuwait News Agency, had also arrived.

The conference was opened yesterday – again, very appropriately – by Samira Rajab, the Bahraini government's official spokesperson, who complained of "fallacies disseminated about Bahrain, describing them as bearing no iota of truth and misleading to the public opinion". 

"She said Bahrain was and is still the victim of false news which are misleading to the public opinion, stressing the key role of official news agencies in disclosing news objectively, responding to lies and laying bare fabricated news."

Ms Rajab, readers may recall, is a fan of the late Saddam Hussein.

In a separate speech, Bahrain's prime minister, Prince Khalifa, called for "unification of Arab media discourse" (whatever that means). 

"The Prime Minister urged for working towards unification of Arab media discourse in the face of defamatory, separatist and crisis-mongering campaigns which target the Arab nation, asserting that the safety of one Arab state means the safety of all other states and that the targeting of one Arab state means the targeting of all other Arab states and that our fortitude relies upon our unity and our disassembling makes us more targetable. 

"The Prime Minister pointed out that we're concerned about the fate of our Arab nation whose interests and unity should be defended by everybody each according to his capacity and position and that an efficient media is the prime defence line."

A conference of this kind is never complete without some ludicrous fawning from those in attendance towards their hosts, and FANA's secretary-general, Dr Ayyar (an Iraqi), dutifully obliged:

"[He] lauded the Kingdom of Bahrain's accomplishments in terms of its renaissance in all walks of life, specifically in media aspects which qualified Bahrain to become the Capital of Arab Press 2012 which reflects atmospheres of freedom and openness experienced in the Kingdom of Bahrain under the wise leadership of HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa the Prime Minister and HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa the Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander."

For other reports of this event see the Kuwait News Agency, the Oman News Agency and the Emirates news agency, WAM.

In 2009, incidentally, as part of a "freedom of expression and media pluralism" project, UNESCO provided a $40,000 grant for "building insitutional capacity" among the Arab news agencies.