Demirören elected to WAN-IFRA board unanimously

BERLIN

Demirören Media Chairman Yıldırım Demirören has become a member of the board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) to represent Turkey.

Demirören’s board membership was unanimously approved at the WAN-IFRA executive board meeting in Berlin on Oct. 9. He was unanimously elected for the seat at the WAN-IFRA general assembly in June in Lisbon, where the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the organization was marked.

Representing more than 3,000 newspapers, news publisher companies and media technologies firms, WAN-IFRA is known as the world’s most influential media institution.

The association is an umbrella for newspaper owners from 80 countries across the world.

WAN-IFRA, a group that has a say in international media organizations, was founded in 1948 in Paris by Claude Bellanger, the legendry publisher and journalist of the Le Parisien Libere, under the name of “FIEJ.”

Bellanger left the top seat of the institution founded by himself in 1978, after serving the world press for three decades.

The name “FIEJ” was changed into World Association of Newspapers (WAN) under the presidency of Jayme Sirotski from Brazil in early 2000’s.

Later, WAN merged with IFRA, a media technologies organization founded by FIEJ in 1967 in Darmstadt, Germany and it adopted a new umbrella name, WAN-IFRA.

The organization is today represented at two offices in Paris and Frankfurt.

It also has subsidiaries in Singapore and India’s Chennai, where it holds meetings and symposiums.

The World Editors Forum (WEF) acts under WAN-IFRA but has a separate board. It will hold its annual meeting in the Rorvegian capital of Oslo this year. The WAN-IFRA general assembly and the World News Media Congress converge in different cities each year.

The congress and the general assembly will be held in Glasgow upon an invitation by the Scottish journalists.

The 2004 congress was held in Istanbul, witnessing a record member of participants.