WHEREAS, the mid-year meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) was held in a virtual format with the participation of 65 speakers in three days of panels and presentations and, at the opening, its president, Michael Greenspon and the chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, addressed the issues that set the tone for the conference;
WHEREAS, the regional vice president for Nicaragua, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, along with his colleagues, Tamara Dávila, Miguel Mendoza and Lesther Alemán, led a panel that moved the participants with a vivid and human story about their unjust imprisonment and expatriation, along with more than 300 people who were stripped of their nationality by the Sandinista regime, and this presentation was moderated by Carlos Jornet;
WHEREAS, the Argentine jurist Eduardo Bertoni, representative of the Regional Office for South America of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, explained to the participants the scope of the new Model Protocol for Intervention by Security Forces with Journalists, developed jointly with UNESCO;
WHEREAS, the following vice presidents of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information contributed to the three panels that reviewed the state of press freedom in the Americas on Tuesday afternoon, April 25: Daniel Dessein (Argentina), Marcelo Rech (Brazil), Andrés Mompotes (Colombia), Henry Constantín (Cuba), Francisco Rocha (Ecuador), Fabricio Altamiramo (El Salvador); Miguel Franjul (for Haiti), Miguel Henrique Otero (Venezuela), Jorge Carrasco (Bolivia), Carlos Schaerer (Chile), Sasha Dudding (United States), Mario Alejandro Sandoval (Guatemala), Diego Quijano (Panama); Natalia Zuccolillo (Paraguay), Rodrigo Salazar Zimmermann (Peru), Germán Gutiérrez (Canada); Iary Gómez (Costa Rica), Sebastián Pastor (Honduras), Martha Ramos (Mexico), Leonor Mulero (Puerto Rico), Miguel Franjul (Dominican Republic) and Washington Beltrán (Uruguay).
WHEREAS, Juan Pablo Bernal, analyst of the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) coordinated an interesting panel on "The propaganda and disinformation of China and Russia in Latin America" together with journalist and researcher Ludmila González Cerulli and Nicolás de Pedro, Senior Fellow, Institute for Statecraft of London;
WHEREAS, before an audience of more than 160 people connected by Zoom, Luis González Pérez, Professor of Journalism at Florida International University (FIU) of Miami, Florida, gave a brilliant lecture on "Artificial Intelligence at the service of journalism";
WHEREAS, John Reichertz, Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), in a panel with Dalia Hashim, director of the AI and Media Integrity program and Jacobo Castellanos, Technology, Threats and Opportunities coordinator at Witness, presented valuable information and experiences on the dangers and benefits for journalism of Artificial Intelligence;
WHEREAS, Juan David Bernal, executive director of the Latin American Council for Accreditation of Education in Journalism and Communication, CLAEP, Universidad Hemisferios, Ecuador and Nicole Cuevas Orna, professor at said university elaborated on a comparative study of the last two surveys on the State of Digital Transformation in the Americas that were conducted by the IAPA Press Institute, and the chairman of the Press Institute Committee, Ernestro Kraiselburd, El Día, La Plata, Argentina, acted as moderator;
WHEREAS, famed U.S. media analyst and editor Ken Doctor gave a sobering talk on "Reconstructing Local News," and his presentation was given by IAPA Executive Committee Chair Gabriela Vivanco, editor of La Hora, Ecuador;
WHEREAS, Ezequiel Arbusti, founder and CEO of the firm Mark Tube, led a panel rich in experiences on audience growth strategies in the media with the participation of Roberto Rock of La Silla Rota, Isaid Mera of Radio Fórmula, Eduardo Arámbula of Luz Noticias, Mexico; Cecilia Álvares of La Diaria, Uruguay and Víctor Tisnado of La Prensa, Panama, with the support of Jazmín Bonilla and Sergio Hernández of Mark Tube;
WHEREAS, Rodrigo Bonilla, News Industry Relations Manager at Google, together with IAPA Executive Director Ricardo Trotti, participated in a conversation on the upcoming launch of Fundamental Lab, an initiative aimed at supporting news media in the continent that are going through different types of difficulties;
WHEREAS, on Thursday Adeline Hulin, Natalia Zuazo of Unesco and Peruvian jurist Erick Iriarte, formed a panel, moderated by Ana Cristina Ruelas, senior manager of Unesco, in which the global initiative on content moderation following the Paris Conference in which the IAPA was represented, was addressed;
WHEREAS, in the following panel, Danielle Coffey, News Media Alliance and Paul Deegan, News Media Canada, under the leadership of Martin Etchevers, Clarín, Buenos Aires, Argentina, updated the audience on the status of legislative projects on copyright and competition, an essential issue for the sustainability of the media;
WHEREAS, Chartbeat company executive Julia Schvartzer gave a very informative talk on the uses of content as part of an audience development strategy;
WHEREAS, Martha Ramos, president of IAPA's Inclusion and Diversity Committee and editorial director of Organización Editorial Mexicana, OEM, chaired a panel that addressed the lack of female representation in executive positions within the media, and said panel was made up of female directors and media executives; Gabriela Vivanco, from La Hora of Ecuador; Laura Puertas, from Corporación Medcom of Panama and Cathy Reyes, from CNN en Español;
WHEREAS, at the last presentation of the program, Andrés D'Alessandro, executive director, and Adriana Amado, researcher of the Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas de Argentina, Adepa, presented the results of a thorough investigation conducted by that organization on the transformations in the media after the Covid-19 pandemic; and
THE SIP MID-YEAR MEETING RESOLVES TO
To thank all presenters and speakers at the 2023 Midyear Meeting program, as well as the more than 500 participants throughout the three days of broadcasts on the IAPA platform.
