Lord Black Elected ENPA President

Lord Black of Brentwood, Telegraph Media Group executive director, has been elected as the new president of European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA). Lord Black was elected during ENPA’s general assembly which took place in Oslo at the weekend.

ENPA president Lord Black said: “I am honoured to have been elected president of ENPA. I look forward very much to working closely with colleagues from across Europe, and with the ENPA team in Brussels, on the vital and complex issues we face in order to ensure that we retain a free and fearless media.

“Data protection, copyright, taxation, the so-called “right to be forgotten” and many other issues are high up the agenda, and we have a big job to do in representing European newspaper publishers and putting our case to the new Commission and Parliament. In this task, we are incredibly lucky to build on the work of Ivar Rusdal who has served ENPA for four years with great distinction, wisdom and commitment.”

The new ENPA President succeeds the Norwegian publisher, Ivar Rusdal, Chair of Nordsjø Media AS, who has just completed the maximum four-year term in office. He said: “Democracy needs free media. In turbulent market conditions, it is essential that the EU respects and promotes the freedom of the media, not only in words, but through actions.

“Interventionist legislation may easily cut away the edges of basic freedoms and undermine the business that the media need to remain independent. It is the purpose of ENPA to explain this to legislators and administrators in Brussels. I wish our new president, Guy Black, and his team, every success in their work that is so vital both for media and society in general.”

The ENPA general assembly also adopted a resolution underlining concerns that the draft EU general regulation on data protection could have a serious detrimental impact on press freedom, investigative journalism and protection of sources, as well as the storing and archiving of press articles. This resolution called for a directly applicable and legally binding exemption from data protection rules in Article 80 of the new regulation, in order to ensure that journalists and publishers are able to fulfil their mission in democratic society.