James Hewes provides his reflections on Congress via Monocle’s Stack podcast

Today we leave June behind us and with it ‘Congress month’. There’s been a lot to digest from the event over the past few weeks, and you can now hear the views of FIPP President & CEO James Hewes directly on the latest episode of The Stack, Monocle’s print-focussed radio show hosted by Fernando Augusto Pacheco.

“It was wonderful,” Hewes says in looking back to Congress, “and so great to see everybody in person!” 

“We were reminded over the course of the three days of the event, what we had lost in the time of Covid. I think I worked out that it was something like 800 – 850 days since the last Congress we’d had in person in 2019, and you could really tell that everybody in the intervening period was so full of kindof pent up energy and enthusiasm to see people in person again, so it was great to see that back in a thriving live environment.”

One of the core focusses for FIPP over the second half of 2022 and beyond, will be connecting with – and championing – media in less established markets.  

“It was just great to hear that there’s a lot of activity, enthusiasm, and entrepreneurial spirit happening in markets outside of the common gaze that we have on western and North American markets,” says Hewes. “And for us at FIPP one of our goals over the next 2-3yrs is to increase our focus on markets that didn’t get the attention that they deserve in the past.” 

“So we’ve been very focussed on the UK, and US, and European markets, and I think for the next few years we really want to look at those markets in Africa, and Asia, and South America, and provide a kindof spotlight on what’s happening there. Because from our initial investigations it’s clear that there’s an enormous amount of really exciting activity in those markets… not just in the publishing world but in the media space more generally.”

You can listen to The Stack podcast here, and the Congress special episode of FIPP’s own Media Unscripted podcast, which is focussed on diversity, equality, and inclusion, is now also open to all here.