The International Press Institute (IPI) announced the inclusion of recently-elected Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radičová in its World Congress programme. She will be the first Slovak prime minister to attend an IPI World Congress, which, this year, will be held jointly in Vienna, Austria, and for the first time in Bratislava, Slovakia, according to an official IPI release.
Radičová will also take questions from the audience, which will comprise editors, media executives, leading journalists and publishers from around the world.
“I am honoured that this renowned organisation has chosen to host part of its World Congress in Bratislava, and pleased to be the first Slovak Prime Minister to attend,” Radičová said today. “I hope that this event can herald an era of greater press freedom and also greater media responsibility in Slovakia. I look forward to the opportunity to take questions from such an international audience.”
Radičová has offered to take questions from the floor at the event on the final day of the IPI World Congress, which is to be held at the newly opened Kempinski Hotel River Park, Bratislava. The closing dinner will be held at Bratislava Castle.
Also in Bratislava, former Slovak foreign minister Miroslav Lajčák will give a keynote address during the panel “Reporting on Extremist Politicians – How New and Traditional Media Cover the Politics of the Extreme.” Participants in that session include Sergej Danilov, an investigative journalist with Slovakia’s Rádio Expres, Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, editor-in-chief of Austrian daily Der Standard, and Gábor Miklósi, a reporter for Index.hu, Budapest. Jim Clancy, an anchor for CNN
International, will moderate the session, according to the IPI release.
This year’s IPI World Congress marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of IPI, and will be held in Vienna and Bratislava from 11-14 September 2010. Themed “Thinking the Unthinkable: Are We Losing the News?”, the Congress will focus attention on the state of the news media, providing new business models and solutions for the media, and examples of how freedom of the press can survive in this new media environment.
For more information please visit the official website: www.ipiworldcongress.com.
