JJacob Mathew, Executive Editor of the Malayala Manorama Group of Publications, has unanimously been elected president of WAN-IFRA at its annual general meeting held in Dublin, Ireland.
He is the first Indian and second Asian, after Seok Hyun Hong of Korea, to be elected to this office. He will take over from Gavin K O'Reilly, Group Chief Executive Officer of The Independent News and Media Group, Ireland, on July 1, 2011. Tomas Brunegard, CEO, Stampen Group, Sweden, has been elected vice-president.
WAN-IFRA, based in Paris and Darmstadt, Germany, is a global organisation of newspaper editors and publishers, representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries. The World Association of Newspapers, founded in 1948, and IFRA, the research and service organisation of the news publishing industry, founded in 1962, merged in 2009 to form WAN-IFRA. Its core mission is to defend and promote quality journalism, editorial integrity, press freedom and development of new media business.
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Jacob Mathew is now a trustee of the Press Institute of India/Research Institute for Newspaper Development and is also on the Asia Board of the International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA).