Appreciation Madrid

WHEREAS our Host Committee, chaired by Ignacio Polanco, Diario El País and Grupo PRISA, Madrid, Spain, and made up of Juan Luis Cebrián and Jesús Ceberio, Diario El País, Madrid, Spain; Alex Grijelmo and Lola Álvarez, Agencia Efe, Madri, Spain; Santiago de Ybarra and José Maria Bergareche, Diario ABC (Grupo Vocento), Madrid, Spain; Javier Godó and Carlos Godó, Diario La Vanguardia (Grupo Godó), Barcelona, Spain provided an atmosphere of hospitality and cordiality conducive to professional and social activities WHEREAS the General Assembly received the generous support of the following organizations that sponsored hospitality events, offered services and provided useful and informative material and equipment: Telefónica, BBVA, Repsol, gasNatural, Santander, Iberdrola, Indra, Sol Meliá Hotels and Resorts, Ministério de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación, Gobierno de España, Comunidad de Madrid, Protec, MkRoon, Iberia, Grupo Ink, Museo del Prado, Casino de Madrid, Palacio Municipal de Congresos de Madrid, Hotel Meliá Castilla, Fundación de Ayuda contra la Drogadicción (FAD), Confort Bus, She Travelling Cándido (Segovia), Retaurante El Rana Verde (Aranjuez), Restaurante La Posada de la Vilal (Madrid), Corral de la Morería (Madrid), Mónico, Planet Events, Cool Vintage, Real Madrid C. F. WHEREAS V.M. Juan Carlos I, of Spain, honored us with his presence at the IAPA General Assembly official opening ceremony on Monday, October 6 WHEREAS Ignacio Polanco, PRISA Group, presented opening remarks on behalf of the Host Committee WHEREAS Víctor Núñez Fernández, Director General and Secretary General of the Asociación Española de Prensa Gratuita (AEPG), Madrid, Spain; Sverre Munck, director of 20 Minutos Grupo and Schibsted Group, Oslo, Norway; Albert Montagut, director of ADN, Barcelona, Spain, and Ana Isabel Pereda, editor of QUE newspaper, Madrid, Spain held a successful seminar on the phenomenon of free and easy-to-read newspapers WHEREAS Álex Grijelmo, President of Agencia EFE, Madrid, Spain; Pedro Luis Barcia, Director of the Argentine Academy of Letters, Buenos Aires, Argentina; José Moreno de Alba, Director of the Mexican Academy of Language, A.C., Mexico, and Victor Garcia de la Concha, Director of the Royal Spanish Academy of Language, Madrid, Spain, held a highly successful roundtable on Spanish language WHEREAS César Dopazo, professor in the Department of Science and Technology of Materials and Fluids and adviser to the president of the European commission, Zaragoza, Spain; Manuel Toharia Cortés, scientific director of the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia and President of the Spanish Association of Scientific Journalism, Valencia, Spain; Luis Bailarón, director of the Program of Analysis and Attribution of Climate Change of AEMET, Madrid, Spain, and Thomas Downing, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (Oxford office) and co-author of Atlas of Climate Change, Oxford, United Kingdom held a successful seminar on the press and climate change WHEREAS Jean-François Fogel, international executive, Le Monde, Paris, France; Klaus Meier, journalism professor, University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany; Stefanie Himoff, Vice President, Pluck Social Media, London, United Kingdom; Francis Pisani, author, blogger and freelance columnist, San Francisco, California; Lourival Sant’Anna, journalist with O Estado de S. Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, held a successful seminar on the search of new readers and new technologies for new audiences WHEREAS Rosenthal Alves, Director of the Knight Center for Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, Texas; Wolfgang Vyslozil, President of Austria Press Agency (APA), Vienna, Austria; Jim Brady, Vice President of The Washington Post.com, Washington, D.C.; Torry Pedersen, board member of Verdens Gang, Oslo, Norway; Rhidian Wynn-Davies, The Daily Telegraph, London, United Kingdom held a very successful roundtable on integrating newsrooms and the online newspapers WHEREAS Antonio Fernández Galiano, Board Member of Unidad Editorial (Diario El Mundo), Madrid, Spain; José Manuel Fernándes, Editor, Público, Lisbon, Portugal; José Luis Mazuelas, President, MkRoom, Madrid, Spain; Silvia Reig, General Manager, Prisa Innova, Madrid, Spain, and Luca Traverso, Divison Director, Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy, held a successful roundtable on self-promotion and promotions to increase circulation WHEREAS Guillermo Pérez, El País, Montevideo, Uruguay; Reiner Kellerhals, Global Media % Entertainment Solutions Lead at Microsoft Corporation, Germany; Paul Brannan, Editor of the BBC Emerging Platforms, London, United Kingdom; David Gutiérrez, Director of BEMS, Madrid, Spain; Luis Ezcurra, Director of Terminals, Telefónica, Madrid, Spain held a successful seminar on cell phone as a news content receiver WHEREAS Asdrúbal Aguiar, lawyer and former Inter-American Human Rights Court Judge, Caracas, Venezuela; Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe, Madrid, Spain; Sol Gallego-Díaz, Managing editor of El País, Madrid, Spain; Robert Rock, political columnist, El Universal, Mexico City, Mexico; Ángel Expósito, Editor of ABC, Madrid, Spain, held a successful seminar on laws on access to public records WHEREAS Enrique Santos Calderón, El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia; Giuliana Sgrena, Il Manifesto, Rome, Italy; David Dadge, Director, International Press Institute (IPI), Vienna, Austria; Fernando Castelló, International President of Reporters Without Borders, Paris, France; Niko Price, Editor-in-chief for Latin America, The Associated Press, Mexico City, Mexico held a successful seminar of jornalists’ safety WHEREAS Raúl Kraiselburd, El Día, La Plata, Argentina; Ramón Salaverría, Director of Multimedia Communication Laboratory (MMLab) of Navarra University School of Communication, Spain; Jeremy Lennard, Foreign Editor, The Guardian, London, United Kingdom; Joaquín Estefanía, Director of the UAM – EL PAÍS School of Journalism; and Amancio Fernández, Director of the ABC School of Jornalism, Madrid, Spain held a successful roundtable on the digital generation and training of the new tech-savvy professionals WHEREAS Fabricio Altamirano, El Diario de Hoy, San Salvador, El Salvador; Andrew Moger, News Media Coalition (NMC), London, United Kingdom; Margaret Boribon, Secretary General of Copieprese, Belgium; Noelia Fernández, head of programming, Yahoo, Lausanne, Switzerland discussed content distribution in an interesting panel discussion WHEREAS Writer Mario Vargas Llosa addressed assembly delegates during the Monday, October 6 luncheon WHEREAS Felipe González Márquez, former President of the Government of Spain, spoke to the audience on Monday, October 6 and was introduced by Juan Luis Cebrián, El Pais and PRISA Group, WHEREAS The Spanish President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, addressed the assembly during the closing ceremony on Tuesday, October 7 WHEREAS Enrique Iglesias, Secretary-General of the Ibero-American Organization, Madrid, Spain, was a speaker on Tuesday, October 6, and was introduced by José Antich, Editor of La Vanguardia, Barcelona, Spain THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to express on behalf of the president, its officers, directors and members its deepest gratitude and appreciation to the people and enterprises that contributed to and supported this 64rd General Assembly.