Though the newspaper and news publishing industry is facing challenges, the recent World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Bangkok, Thailand, provided many examples of innovation and experimentation that were heartening for the industry.
More than 1,500 publishers, chief editors and other news publishing executives gathered in Bangkok for the events last month. The presentations from those meetings are now available in videos and audio podcasts – both free versions and complete versions by subscription
Here are some of the things they're saying:
"There is no one silver bullet that will solve all of our issues in this industry. We must try everything, and at the same time don't be afraid to fail."
Eduardo Sirotsky Melzer, CEO, RBS Multimedia Group, Brazil
"We have travelled far from the printed page into the digital age.... We are there for one reason: We must be. We have realised that what consumers value is our commitment to our content, not how we deliver it."
Robert Dickey, President, Gannett's US Community Publishing, United States
"Newspaper professionals understand, more than ever, the benefits offered by the digital world to improve the quality of their conversation with communities, identify new territories where they can expand their role, help reduce the complexity of the world, and increase the trust of their audience."
Vincent Peyrègne, CEO, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)
"The bottom line is that it is essential for the future of news that the readers' interests are protected. People are willing to spend money for news – for objective information – but if this is seen as compromised it will be the kiss of death for news business."
Siddarth Varadarajan, Editor, The Hindu, India
"The new metrics is not page views or unique browsers - it is of relationships," Jarvis said. "It's about how many people do we know, what do we know about them and what are they doing right now?"
Jeff Jarvis, Journalism Professor at City University of New York and the author of "What would Google Do" and "From Gutenberg to Geek"
"Building audience does not guarantee advertising. We need to define audiences and engage them and show our advertisers that we have deep engagement. General audiences will kill us."
Mira Milosevic, Director of Media Development, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)
"Traditional media needs to get away from being a proprietary manufacturer and instead see itself as a platform like an operating system that others can build apps on top of or to plug into. Journalists need to stop thinking like content manufacturers and start thinking like hackers."
Justin Arenstein, Knight International Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, South Africa
"We saw it was absolutely possible to compensate for print revenues at a time when the economy was on its knees. This is incredibly encouraging."
Kevin Beatty, CEO, DMG Media, United Kingdom
"Paywalls work if they are supporting good journalism."
John Stackhouse, Editor-in-chief, The Globe and Mail, Canada
