The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has been carefully documenting its 58th World Newspaper Congress and 12th World Editors Forum, held in Seoul over the past four days.There's a conference 'weblog', although it's not really a blog at all - rather a well-organised chronological summary of conference highlights.
More than 1,000 newspaper 'men' from more than 80 countries pitched up at the event and the sample of quotes below shows the increasing impact of the internet and grassroots journalism:
• "It is still rare for a website operated by a newspaper company to make a profit," said Shin-Ichi Hakoshima, president and CEO of the world's second largest-selling newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
"People around the world assume that the advantage of going to the internet is to get news and information free of charge; hence they tend to stay away from paying money for news on the internet."
He said the paper is still in a state of 'trial and error' as it experiments with publishing on new platforms, but that the only response to change is change. Asahi Shimbun publishes ten news sites designed for mobile phones - a significant one million subscribers pay a subscription of between 100 and 300 yen (50p to £1.50).
• Newspapers are 'pathologically focused on the short term' said Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide. He went on to say that they are still stuck on declaring what the news is, rather than understanding that consumers define the news on their own terms.
"Move into an emotionally positive and inclusive space, where people can see they have a contribution to make and they'll love you forever," he said.
• Product strategies dominate the news business, said Fred Hilmer, CEO of John Fairfax Holdings in Australia.
"Given the threats and challenges we face, product strategies alone cannot produce satisfactory returns and growth. You have to know where you are going in the media universe... and why."
Further highlights from the conference can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/seoul2005/weblogs.php.
• WAN has also just published its 2005 Trends in newsrooms report which tracks developments in journalism and news publishing since 2000.
Key trends include blogging, grassroots journalism, RSS, fact checking, convergence and developing personalised media, and many of the 400 articles in the report were generated by the excellent Editors' weblog.
The report costs 139 Euros (£93) with discounts for WAN members and educational organisations.
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