In addition to hearing country-by-country reports, as is customary during the organization’s annual meetings, the 59th General Assembly, to be held October 10-14 in Chicago, Illinois, has also scheduled a number of presentations, among them remarks by the secretary general of the Organization of American States, César Gaviria, United States National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos.
Another feature of the assembly will be the presentation of special reports on activities during the past six months of the Impunity, Journalists At Risk, and Chapultepec Committees and those related to the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society, among other topics, with delegates discussing strategies for future actions.
Scheduled seminars will include a focus on such issues as changes in demographics in the United States and their impact on the news media. In addition, a teleconference will be held on human rights, with the participation of an American expert and reporters and correspondents from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.
The IAPA General Assembly, to be chaired by the organization’s president, Andrés García, will also be the platform for presentation of the IAPA’s major award, the Grand Prize for Press Freedom, given this year collectively to the journalists of Venezuela. The independent journalists currently imprisoned in Cuba were given an honorable mention in this award category. Other IAPA awards for journalistic excellence will be presented during a special ceremony.
Former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis will be presented with the 2003 Chapultepec Grand Prize in recognition of his work and commitment to promoting and disseminating the principles of the IAPA-sponsored Declaration of Chapultepec, a document that sets out the requirements for protecting and preserving free speech and press freedom in the Western Hemisphere.
The IAPA, returning to Chicago after an absence of 21 years, will hold its
assembly at the downtown Westin Hotel.
FUENTE: nota.texto7
