President’s Report 2009/10
The Shape of Things to Come
In the past we have presented a report of the last year’s activities. We have consigned looking back to the waste bin and intend to concentrate on the future and how IBP is shaping-up to the task of delivering ‘insights’ into our industry sector; how journalism and the constantly changing way in which we all deliver the news and break the next story.
During my Presidency I am going to build on the findings of the IBP Futures Group, chaired by the FT’s Claer Barrett and the recent Review of IBP carried out by the previous President, Denise Chevin. Fundamentally we will be focusing on issues that will assist both journalists and communications professionals to do their jobs more effectively and deliver a better ‘product’. So education, continued professional development, technology and other key subjects will be delivered with a mixture of fun events, interesting speakers and audience participation.
The Futures Group, which is not targeted at any section or age group within IBP, has already proved that this approach works. We have had an evening with John Waples, an interactive Q & A with a panel of legal experts on litigation, an insightful session with Mira Bar Hillel and in September we will have a session with a panel of experts on the iPad, apps and their potential to bring the news quicker and to a bigger audience.
We are embarking on a major international recruitment drive to develop the overseas journalist membership, aligned to an International Journalist of the Year Awards scheme, amongst other benefits.
We have in development the IBP Communications Awards, due to be launched next spring, which, like its sibling the long established National Journalism Awards, will recognize and reward good communications and communicators, with a panel of senior editors initially judging on line entries and then interviewing finalists in several categories. All this will be delivered at the newly formatted annual IBP Summer Party.
Our key annual event, the National Journalism Awards, has been refreshed and new category guidance notes and a hints and tips section have been added to this years “Call for Entries”. This year we are a fixture at Chelsea Football Club; for 2012 we return to our former regular home the Four Seasons Hotel, in Park Lane, which has had its 2012 make over for the Olympics – IBP is due to take over the venue on the 22nd November, when we hope to deliver our own Olympian Awards and hand out the prizes for the best in journalism.
I hope I can count on your support, whether an editor, journalist or communications professional, to drive these new initiatives forward and help deliver a programme of events that really makes a difference.
Please email me on: giles.barrie@ubm.com if you would like to get involved with any of these initiatives or if you have an interesting idea you would like to see develop as part of the IBP programme.
See you soon
Giles Barrie
President Elect
