IPI & UDN Group Announce IPI Annual World Congress
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Taiwan President to Speak at Congress; 250 Participants from 45 Countries Expected
TAIPEI, 20 September 2011: The International Press Institute (IPI) today formally announced the launch of its annual World Congress, to be held in Taipei, Taiwan, from 24-27 September 2011.
This is the second time Taiwan is hosting the Vienna-based press freedom organization’s annual World Congress, 12 years after IPI first held its annual Congress in Taiwan, in 1999.
The Congress will welcome over 250 participants from 45 countries. Under the title “The Asian Media Century”, the global gathering will discuss the changing media landscape, and press freedom issues across the world.
IPI Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “We are excited to be returning to this beautiful and dynamic city for our annual World Congress. This year’s programme focuses on the many exciting developments in the media landscape in Asia, and we could not hope to have a more appropriate venue than Taipei.”
She added: “Sadly, the need for organizations like the International Press Institute has only grown in the years since we were in Taiwan last. All around the world, press freedom continues to be at risk, and journalists continue to be harassed and intimidated. Through this Congress, we hope to continue to build an engaged community of journalists worldwide, who are committed to press freedom, to the profession of journalism, and to promoting innovation, ethics and best practices within the media. We are also eager to welcome more journalists from Taiwan to this community.”
The IPI World Congress, which will be held at the Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel, will cover issues such as cross-Strait relations, China’s rise to power, and covering a nuclear North Korea, as well as topics more closely focused on press freedom and the media industry. The Congress will close on Tuesday, 27 September, with an address from Den-yih Wu, Premier of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
IPI will present three awards at the Congress: Late American journalist Daniel Pearl and South African journalist Raymond Louw will be named IPI World Press Freedom Heroes and Tunisia’s Radio Kalima will receive the IPI Free Media Pioneer Award, in honor of its groundbreaking work in an oppressive press freedom climate.
IPI will also present a special report on “Media and Money", produced in partnership with the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. The report will highlight groundbreaking research, and honor those targeted for reporting on economic affairs.
In addition, the Congress will feature a travelling exhibit produced by the Cartoonists’ Rights Network International, which features editorial cartoons that precipitated a human rights attack against the cartoonist.
The International Press Institute is the world’s oldest press freedom organization. It was founded in 1950 at New York’s Columbia University by leading editors from around the world. With almost 2000 members from over 120 countries, IPI has been at the forefront of the fight for press freedom for over six decades.
In Taiwan, the International Press Institute is supported by the United Daily News Group, an independent, privately-owned daily newspaper that was founded in Taipei in September 1951 by Wang Tih-wu. Under its current chairman, Mr. Wang Pi-cheng, and publisher, Ms. Wang Shaw-lan, the UDN has a higher circulation than any other daily newspaper in Taiwan, and than any privately-owned Chinese-language newspaper globally.
Having won numerous awards and earned high prestige among its readers, the UDN Group has successfully built a solid reputation primarily because of its founder’s belief that, as a public service, it is the newspaper’s responsibility to uphold integrity as its core value.
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