At the News and Documentary Emmys, on 25 September, the U.S. National Television Academy (NTA) honoured the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) and two other organisations for their press freedom work.
After noting that 2005 had been one of the deadliest years on record for working journalists, President/CEO of the NTA, Peter Price, said in his tribute, “The oldest of the three groups we honor tonight is the International Press Institute. Over 55 years ago, 34 editors from 15 countries gathered at Columbia University in New York to start a global organization dedicated to fighting threats to press freedom worldwide. Now based in Vienna, the International Press Institute has members in over 120 countries…. We congratulate them for their important work.”
Receiving the honour on behalf of IPI, Director Johann P. Fritz warmly thanked the NTA and said, “This is an honour for which all members of the International Press Institute can be proud.”
Praising the media, he went on to say, “Courageous and dedicated journalists stand on the frontline of the fight for freedom of expression and they lay the groundwork for democratisation.”
Also honoured were two other press freedom organisations: the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, which has its headquarters in Paris.
The annual event was held in the Broadway Ballroom at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, New York, and attended by some 950 television and new media industry executives, and news documentary producers and journalists.
Founded in 1950, IPI is committed to supporting the rights of the media and the free flow of news and information.
IPI defends freedom of the media and freedom of expression in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments.
To achieve this, IPI publishes the annual World Press Freedom Review, a document highlighting press freedom violations all over the world, regularly undertakes press freedom missions to countries where journalists are endangered, meets with the heads of governments and inter-governmental organisations, and analyses draft legislation infringing the rights of the media.
