The concept for the IAPA was developed in 1926 when some 130 Western Hemisphere journalists–gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first Pan American Congress of Journalists–adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a permanent inter-American organization of journalists. The Congress next met in Mexico City in 1942, at which time it created the Permanent Commission that would be-come the IAPA at a conference in Havana the following year.

At subsequent meetings in Caracas, Bogotá and Quito, the IAPA gradually became established as an institution. While it was predominantly a Latin American organization at this time, in 1946 a small group of North American editors and publishers founded an IAPA of the United States as a national chapter of the hemispheric institution.

Perhaps the most pivotal year in the IAPA’s history was 1950. Until that year, the organization’s conferences were sponsored and paid for by host governments and held at their convenience. Delegations sat and voted by country and members were not always journalists.

Delegates changed all that when they adopted new by-laws precluding such sponsorships. Henceforth, the IAPA would be an independent body, answering to no government or special interest.

The organization is supported solely by How to Become a
 Member. Equally important was the provision that delegates to the meetings would represent only their own publications, each with one vote.

At first, the sweeping changes created considerable hardship as the organization had to begin anew, almost from scratch, with a limited number of members and an empty treasury. Notwithstanding, a new, independent IAPA–nurtured by a handful of members–flourished and has grown steadily ever since.

Today, the IAPA enjoys a membership in excess of 1,300, representing newspapers and magazines from Patagonia to Alaska, with a combined circulation of 43,353,762.

The IAPA has two autonomous affiliates–the IAPA Press Institute, which offers Latin American members advice on technical publishing matters–and the IAPA Scholarship Fund, which provides funds for educational activities.

The organization is governed by a Board of Directors that reports to the full membership at the annual General Assembly, whose meeting sites alternate between South and North America. An Executive Committee oversees the day-to-day activity of the organization’s staff, which works out of the IAPA’s headquarters in Miami, Florida.

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