Miami (June 20, 2014)—The President of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Elizabeth Ballantine, will head an international delegation that will visit Lima, Peru, June 23-25 to gather information about a public debate that has arisen in the South American country concerning alleged media concentration.
The decision to carry out an exploratory mission to Lima was made during the organization’s Midyear Meeting in Barbados. The mission’s objective is to gather information and better understand the discussion over the purchase by the Grupo El Comercio of the Grupo Editorial Epensa.
During the three-day visit to Peru Ballantine, editor of the Durango, Colorado, newspaper The Durango Herald, will be accompanied by Claudio Paolillo, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda; former IAPA Presidents Edward Seaton, publisher of Seaton Newspapers, Manhattan, Kansas, Raúl Kraiselburd, editor of the La Plata, Argentina, newspaper El Día, and Danilo Arbilla of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda; and Fernán Molinos, vice chairman of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, deputy executive editor of the Panama City, Panama, newspaper La Prensa, and IAPA Press Freedom Coordinator Ricardo Trotti.
Paolillo declared, “We have a full agenda to visit representatives of the three branches of government; press associations; news media; universities and journalists, among other sectors of Peruvian society, and are awaiting confirmation of a meeting with Peru’s President Ollanta Humala.”
The results that the international delegation obtains will then be reviewed by the organization’s Executive Committee and members.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
