Agence France-Presse wins European News Agency Award

French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) and its Global News Director, Ms Michèle Léridon, have been awarded the European Alliance of News Agencies´ (EANA) 2015 Award for Excellence in News Agency Quality. AFP and Ms Léridon were awarded the prize for coverage of the Islamic State and for initiating a discussion about ethics and publishing in a time of growing political violence.

The EANA board, that also serves as the Jury for the Award, unanimously decided to give the award to AFP and Ms Léridon saying:

“AFP and Ms Léridon have after the murder of aid workers and journalists and a flood of propaganda images initiated a discussion about the challenge of balancing the journalistic duty to inform the public and the need to avoid being used as a vehicle for propaganda.

Ms Léridon has in a thoughtful way stressed the importance for professional journalists to cover complicated and brutal news, the need to keep reporters safe and the concern for the dignity of victims being paraded by extremists on social media.” Ms Léridon is since mid-2014 AFP´s Global News Director She joined AFP in 1981, after working in regional daily press. At AFP she has worked at the agency’s headquarters in Paris, as Abidjan bureau deputy director, deputy head of social affairs service and deputy editor-in-chief for Europe-Africa. From 2004 to 2006, she headed the social affairs service. In 2009, she was appointed Rome bureau chief after serving as editorial director from 2006 to 2009.

The Award, a diploma, an engraved pen and Euro 1 000, will be handed over to Ms Léridon by the EANA President, Mr Clive Marshall, CEO of PA Group, London, in connection with an EANA conference and the organisation´s Annual General Assembly in Geneva on September 23 - 25, 2015.