Erik Bjerager new president of World Editors Forum

18 Feb 2011

PARIS, FRANCE/DARMSTADT, GERMANY: Erik Bjerager, editor-in-chief and managing director of the Danish national daily Kristeligt Dagblad, has been elected president of the World Editors Forum, the global association for senior newsrooms executives within the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Bjerager, 52, who was elected by the board of WEF for a two-year mandate, succeeds Xavier Vidal-Folch, deputy director of the Spanish daily El Pais, who served as WEF President since 2008.

Bjerager has served as editor-in-chief of Kristeligt Dagblad since 1994. He became managing director of the daily a year later.

He has been a member of the WEF board since 2001. In Denmark, he is chairman of the board of the media-owned national news agency, Ritzau. He has been the chairman of the Danish Press Foundation since 2001, and is currently the chairman of the Copenhagen's Editors Association.

Bjerager, who has published several books, has been awarded the Berlingske Foundation's Journalists Prize and the Jubilee Prize of the National Press Club of Denmark. He is a graduate from the Danish School of Journalism and holds an MA from The American University, Washington, D.C. Before joining Kristeligt Dagblad, Bjerager worked as a journalist in Denmark and abroad.

Marcel van Lingen, managing director and editor-in-chief of GPD, the Netherlands Press Association, since 2007, was elected vice president of WEF. He has been with the news agency since 2000, holding several senior editorial positions, and has been a WEF Board Member since 2004.

Van Lingen succeeds Harald Stanghelle, the political editor of Aftenposten in Norway. Stanghelle had held the post since 2008.

The Paris-based World Editors Forum (www.worldeditorsforum.org) is the organisation of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) that represents editors-in-chief and other senior news executives.