Vidal-Folch re-elected WEF president

11 Oct 2010

Xavier Vidal-Folch, deputy director of the Spanish daily El Pais, has been re-elected president of the World Editors Forum, the global association for senior newsroom executives within the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Vidal-Folch was re-elected for a two-year term by the board of WEF, meeting in Hamburg, Germany, during the 2010 World Editors Forum conference.

Shorter term for Vidal-Folch

Before he agreed to run for a new term, Vidal-Folch declared that he would accept only if he could serve a shorter period than the two-year traditional term of office. He will resign when he considers he can say "mission accomplished" regarding the WEF future and its sustainability as the "organisation of the editors-in-chief and senior news executives within WAN-IFRA"; or if he considers that his contribution to issues arising from the merger between WAN and IFRA last year is no longer substantial.

Vidal-Folch has been deputy director of El Pais since 1989. He has been with the paper since 1982 and has served as chief editor and Brussels bureau chief.

VP WEF re-elected

Harald Stanghelle, the political editor of Aftenposten in Norway, was re-elected VP of WEF. He has been political editor of Aftenposten since 2000. He previously served as news editor of the paper and as editor-in-chief of Dagbladet.

Two editors became new members of the WEF Board: Ricardo Kirschbaum, executive editor of Clarin in Argentina, and François Dufour, editor-in-chief of L'actu in France. View the full list of WEF Board members.