Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader will take part in the opening session
Miami (September 5, 2025) — The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) will hold its 81st General Assembly from October 16–19 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with an agenda focused on the challenges to press freedom, media sustainability, and the impact of artificial intelligence on journalism.
The official opening will feature the presence of Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader, alongside IAPA President José Roberto Dutriz. It will be followed by a special presentation with Jon Lee Anderson (The New Yorker), renowned for his conflict coverage and profiles of global leaders.
The assembly will bring together editors, executives, and leading journalists from across the Americas to discuss the most pressing issues facing the information ecosystem: the state of press freedom and democracy, business models, digital transformation, innovation, and AI applied in newsrooms. The assembly will also present and discuss reports from 24 countries on the state of press freedom in the region.
Among the featured participants is Uruguayan-Colombian political scientist and journalist Laura Gil, recently elected Deputy Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS).
A panel on collaborative investigative journalism will include two distinguished journalists: Hugo Alconada Mon, deputy managing editor of La Nación (Argentina), who will share the stage with Marina Walker Guevara, executive director of the Pulitzer Center in Washington, D.C.
The program also includes a conversation on press freedom in the United States and the democratic value of local journalism with Sonal Shah, CEO of The Texas Tribune.
On the theme of press freedom and forced displacement, the panel “Journalism and Resilience in Exile” will feature Luz Mely Reyes, director and co-founder of Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela); Boris Muñoz, founder of The New York Times en Español opinion section; and Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of Confidencial (Nicaragua).
The program will also feature a talk by Rosental Calmon Alves, founder and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (University of Texas at Austin), on the threats and opportunities posed by the "tsunami" of artificial intelligence for newsrooms, business models, and professional standards.
In the innovation track, the results of the IAPA–Google News Initiative (GNI) labs on monetization and revenue to support media’s digital transformation will be presented, and there will be a workshop on AI applied to journalism led by GNI trainer Mariana Alvarado.
The training component will also include an opinion journalism workshop led by Venezuelan journalist Boris Muñoz.
As is tradition, the 81st General Assembly in Punta Cana will host the IAPA Awards for Excellence in Journalism 2025 and the institution’s major recognitions: the Grand Prize Chapultepec (Thomson Reuters Foundation), the Grand Press Freedom Award (Daniel Coronell, president of Univision News), the Grand Friend of the Press Award (Redacciones5G), and the Executive of the Year Award (René Picado Cozza, president of Televisora de Costa Rica–Teletica).
Registration and lodging. Early registration guarantees participation in the most important press gathering in the Americas and provides access to preferential rates at the host hotel, The Westin Puntacana. Reservations are already available, and early booking is recommended to secure availability.
The IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.