Thaindian News

New Delhi, Apr. 9 (ANI): Jacob Mathew, Executive Editor of the Malayala Manorama Group of Publications, India has been unanimously elected to be the president of WAN-IFRA at its annual general meeting in Dublin, Ireland. He is the first Indian and second Asian, after Dr. Seok Hyun Hong of Korea, to be elected to this office.

Mathew succeeds 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 as the Vice President.

WAN-IFRA based in Paris and in Darmstadt in Germany, and is a global organisation of newspaper editors and publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries.

The World Association of Newspapers, founded in 1948 and IFRA, the research and service organisation 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.

The Malayala Manorama group based in Kerala, India publishes Malayala Manorama daily with a circulation of over 1.9 million copies per day.

The group has 50 publications, including The Week and Vanitha, a leading women’s fortnightly magazine. Malayala Manorama also broadcasts Manorama News, a 24 hour news channel, and has FM stations under the Radio Mango name. It is also very dominant in the digital space. Manoramaonline is one of the most widely read newspaper websites in India.

Mathew is currently a trustee of the Press Institute of India/Research Institute for Newspaper Development and is also on the Asia Board of INMA (International Newspaper Marketing Association).

He has served on the board and the Executive Council of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). Jacob is the Past President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and has been the past chairman of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). (ANI)