Ibarguen named Newseum chairman

Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, will become of chairman of the Newseum Jan.1, 2007 and four nationally known people will join the Newseum board.

The new trustees include three media executives and a former director of the National Park Service:

-- Gary L. Ginsberg, executive vice president, corporate affairs, News Corp.

-- George B. Irish, president, Hearst Newspapers and senior vice president, Hearst Corp.

-- Robert Stanton, former director, National Park Service

-- David Westin, president, ABC News

"These moves broaden the base of active support for the Newseum," said Charles L. Overby, who continues as chief executive officer. "When we open in the fall of 2007, the Newseum will have the benefit of both a strong management team and an outstanding board of directors."

Other Newseum trustees include educators, authors, and business and civic leaders.

The Freedom Forum's largest-funded program is the Newseum, a museum of news nearing completion at Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street in Washington. The $435-million project is expected to open in September 2007.

Ibarguen leads one of the nation's largest private independent foundations. With assets of $1.9 billion, the Knight Foundation makes grants of more than $90 million annually to promote excellence in journalism. Ibarguen has been a newspaper executive for more than 20 years, first at the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and then at Newsday in New York before joining Knight Ridder. He was publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald until July, when he assumed his current position at the Knight Foundation. During his tenure at The Miami Herald, the newspaper won three Pulitzer Prizes.

Ibarguen is on the Trustee's Council of the National Gallery of Art, the Advisory Council of the Public Accounting Oversight Board and is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is former chairman of the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and has served on the boards of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other nonprofit organizations and educational institutions.

A graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela's Amazon territory and in Colombia.

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