Newspaper executives from Spain, Japan, Sweden and the United States, among other countries, grappled with how to keep up and grow in a global environment of rapid technological change and merging platforms accessed by increasingly sophisticated users.

Akishige Tada, the chairman of the board of Japan’s 47 News/Press Net, told delegates that 52 Japanese newspapers had launched a unique digital news and information platform in 2006.

The purpose of 47News was to pool resources but also to face up to the challenge thrown down by the information needs of a Japanese population that enjoys high accessibility to broadband (almost two thirds of households in Tokyo), Tada said.

Named after the 47 provinces in Japan, 47News represents a single portal for the 52 member newspapers’ 25 million readers.

The advantages of the single portal, an example of unprecedented media company cooperation in Japan, included the development and sharing of new technologies, the growth of advertising revenue and the capacity to interact more effectively with readers, Tada told delegates.

“The success of our project will depend on whether we can produce good content and to this end editors need to change their mentality,” Tada said.

Where previously journalists had hours to complete and file their stories, they now needed to do this instantly.

This posed a significant challenge to newsrooms, as well as new opportunities.

“We’ve taken a step forward but, like mountaineers, we have a long way to reach the next base camp and even further before we make an attempt on the summit”.

Tada said Japanese editors were determined to hold out against the challenge of the internet as well as to uphold traditional journalism values.

Tomas Brunegard, CEO of the Stampen Group in Sweden agreed there was still room for traditional newspaper values to underpin the search for new markets and the exploitation of new technologies.

“With the right people on the team and the four values of excellence, passion, courage and humility”, anything was possible, he told delegates.

Jaime Gutierrez-Colomer, a general manager at Unidad Editorial in Spain said his company had a different take on multiskilling journalists: “We don’t believe in multimedia journalists, we believe in multimedia newsrooms,” he said.