Ronald Koven

Gender Male
Age
Region North America
Nationality USA
Residence France
Languages
Nominated by
Endorsed by Media Caucus

Endorsing statement

Ronald Koven has been the European Representative of the World Press Freedom Committee since 1981.

It is an umbrella organization of journalistic organizations -- 45 international, regional and national affiliated groups on five continents, representing broadcast and print press, labor and management -- united in the defense and promotion of press freedom.

Koven has written and spoken widely on free speech and press freedom on the Internet. His initial statement on the subject was in a speech at the UNESCO General Conference in 1995. He drafted a joint statement on Internet governance adopted for World Press Freedom Day 2004 by the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, consisting of nine leading world groups -- Commonwealth Press Union (London), Committee to Protect Journalists (New York City), Inter American Press Association (Miami), International Association of Broadcasting (Montevideo), International Association of the Periodical Press (London), International Press Institute (Vienna), North American Broadcasters Association (Toronto), World Association of Newspapers (Paris), and World Press Freedom Committee (Washington, DC). He would present that statement to the Working Group on Internet Governance.

During the 1960s, Koven was the "De Gaulle watcher" of the International Herald Tribune. He joined The Washington Post in 1969 and was successively its Canada Correspondent, Diplomatic Editor, Foreign Editor and Paris-based Correspondent for Latin Europe and the Maghreb. He was the Paris Correspondent of The Boston Globe 1981-91 and has taught at the Political Sciences Institute of Paris.

Starting from the fall of the Berlin Wall, he undertook for WPFC an extensive program of aid to the emerging independent press in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, including organizing conferences and seminars, publishing training manuals, legal aid projects, and providing targeted material help to news outlets and journalists unions and associations.