Associated Press Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll will address the importance of a free press in a government’s relationship with the people it serves during a keynote address at the International Government Communication Forum in the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 24.
At the event, Carroll, the top news executive of the world’s most trusted news agency, will explain how the press can be a proxy for citizen questions and concerns and how governments that are transparent with the press — and by extension the people — can build important trust.
Carroll’s remarks will open the final day of the event, which aims to bring together local, regional and global media experts with government thought leaders to explore issues relevant to the Arab world and the international community. Other scheduled speakers include former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon and James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.
During her tenure, Carroll has led AP’s global focus on journalism that holds government officials accountable to the people they lead. AP operates in 280 locations around the world and Carroll has overseen AP’s expansion into several key areas, including Myanmar and North Korea.
Before becoming AP’s top editor in 2002, Carroll was an editor and news executive with the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and the AP in Washington, California, New Jersey and her native Texas. She has also worked at the International Herald Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News and the Dallas Morning News. She is vice-chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists board, serves on the Associated Press Media Editors board and was a member of the Pulitzer Prize board from 2003 – 2012.
The three-day event features a mix of sessions and workshops on topics such as social media, the changing role of government communication and reputation management. Session leaders include Donald Steel, specialist in reputation and crisis management, and Zahera Harb, senior lecturer from the Journalism Department of City University London.
There will also be a live one-on-one session with Alastair Campbell, director of communications and strategy for former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Entitled ‘internal communication between departments/ministers of the state’, the session will include a real life case study.
Contact
Erin Madigan White
Sr. Media Relations Manager
The Associated Press
212-621-7005
[email protected]
Laura Imregi
Communications Manager
The Associated Press
0207 482 7751
[email protected]