The Institute of Maltese Journalists has taken part in the 2006 Annual General Conference of the International Association of Press Clubs and the European Federation of Press Clubs that has just been held in London.

IMJ representative at the Conference Joe C. Cordina joined the declaration which appealed for the maintenance of an independent media, and the enlarging of the Freedom of the Press.

The declaration, that was made in a final document after the two-day conference hosted by the London Press Club, said that: “We representatives of Press Clubs from around the world, have met in London to discuss matters of common interest and to chart a way forward that involves our organisations more closely in maintaining independent media, enlarging freedom of the press and improving good governance in our societies. We wish to encourage the establishment and expansion of Free Press Clubs throughout the world. To this end, we pledge our clubs to maintain their independence from any single source of funding and not to compromise their integrity through dependence on any single source, commercial, political or governmental.

“We extend the hand of friendship to all journalists who strive to maintain high standards of integrity, accuracy and honesty in their work. We encourage them to joint action, both within their own societies in the framework of local and national Press Clubs. In addition we undertake to encourage the establishment of Press Clubs in cities and countries where they do not yet exist and to support, morally and materially, Press Clubs that wish to be associated with our organisations.

“Our two organisations, the International Association of Press Clubs and the European Federation of Press Clubs, undertake to keep under review the progress made in achieving the goals set out in this London Declaration. Each year we will report to our members and to each other on developments which affect them and we will publicise widely both the achievements and the shortcomings that we register in that review.”

The two-day programme of the conference, entitled Reporting from a world capital, included talks by Alan Rushbridger, editor of The Guardian, Simon Walldman, director of digital publishing for The Guardian/Observer Group and Reijo Kemppinen, European Commission Representative in the UK, who spoke on Selling a difficult story: Reporting Europe in London. Another talk was given by The Financial Times executive editor Hugh Carnegy on Editing global news in an international business capital.

Delegates were taken to visit The Guardian newsroom, the Foreign Press Association – where they also attending a briefing session given by high-level officials involved in organising the 2012 London Olympics and the British Library, where delegates were shown around the Newspaper Publishers Association Exhibition on 500 years of Newspapers.

Another venue visited was Reuters’s new newsrooms at Canary Wharf and journalists own church, the church of St Bride’s.