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UK Section |
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Chairman's
report to the 2008 Annual General Meeting |
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2008 was a busy and rewarding year for our members, marked especially
by the glittering AEJ 40th birthday party in October, the brainchild of some
of our older members who have personal memories of its inception. We staged
the party together with the FPA who are positively antique in comparison
– they marked their 120th birthday at the same occasion. The Foreign
Secretary, many ambassadors and former guest speakers at our meetings were
among our guests, and they all got to know the AEJ better thanks to that
splendid occasion. I am very pleased that our regular professional lunch meetings with
newsmakers and public figures were consistently well attended in 2008. I
believe that reflects the range and quality of the speakers, as well as the
coordinated efforts of the elected officers of the Section and of David
Lennon, who took on the role of Events Director early in the year and has
been extremely effective. My special thanks go to him, and to our Secretary
Celia Hampton. In addition to the regular work of arranging lunchtime
briefings and distributing timely information about other media opportunities
and invitations to members, Celia's webmastering has made the Section's
website both attractive and up to date – a real example of
multi-skilling. The AEJ's profile is indeed on the rise, as shown by our
strong and active links with the Foreign Press Association,
the European Commission, numerous foreign embassies and other
organisations. As chairman of the UK Section, I agreed during last year to be
on the jury of the FPA's UK Press Awards as well as the Reuters-UACES
(University Association of Contemporary European Studies) prize for
"Reporting Europe". |
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See also Minutes of 2008 AGM,
Secretary's 2008 report, Report to International AEJ Our membership is at a historically high level, and it is good to see
quite a few new faces attending our recent events. At the AEJ's international Assembly and Congress in Linz, Austria, I
helped to organise a session on the worrying increase in threats to media
freedom, focusing on acute problems in several countries where the AEJ has
active branches. The event helped to consolidate the AEJ's role as one of the
journalists' organisations that provide information to help the Council of
Europe to formulate its policies and standards on media matters. Quite a few
UK Section members took part in the debates in Linz, and the texts of several
specially-written reports on Journalism At Risk, Public Broadcasting, and
Declining Trust in the Media are available on the international AEJ website www.aej.org
as well as our own www.aej-uk.org Once again I ask members to remember that the AEJ works through the
voluntary efforts of its elected officers and the goodwill and support of
members. Last year was a good one both on a professional and on a social
level. There is every chance that the coming year will be at least as good. William Horsley Chairman, AEJ UK Section London, 13 January 2009 |
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OTHER PAGES Press
Coverage of the Media Freedom Survey |
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