On Sunday, 30 May, participants will be able to choose between a roundtable discussion on press freedom in the Arab world, or another on strategies for managing digital media. From an examination of press freedom problems the world over, to the latest case studies and presentations on newspaper business and news strategies, the Congress and Forum have something for everyone.
The roundtables are a "value added" event at the Congress, Forum and Info Services Expo, to be held from 30 May to 2 June in Istanbul, Turkey. More than 1,000 publishers, CEO, senior editors and other newspaper executives and their guests are expect at the events, the global meetings of the world’s press.
There is still time to register for the events, less than four weeks away. Full programme details, the evolving participants list, and other essential information can be found by clicking here.
The roundtable on "Opportunities and Profit in the New Digital Media" will examine the latest opportunities in new technologies by publishers who are successfully capitalising on them.
It will be chaired by Torry Pedersen, Managing Director of VG Multimedia in Norway, who will present some ideas to help newspaper publishers exploit digital media.
The roundtable will also feature a case study on how A-Pressen Media Group and Telenor in Norway are publishing classified advertisements on mobile telephones; a presentation by Stephan Thurm of Medienhaus in Austria, which makes 25 percent of its profits from digital platforms; a case study by Ian Haywood of Associated Newspapers in the UK on how newspaper headlines are automatically repurposed and sent to SMS subscribers; and (to be confirmed) an examination of The Times of India, the first newspaper to use "shortcoding" to capture new markets, and whose mobile service generates 15 million text messages a day.
The roundtable on "Press Freedom in the Arab World: A New Era in Sight?" will be chaired by Said Essoulami, the Director of the Centre for Media Freedom in The Middle East and North Africa.
Speakers include Hisham Kassem, Publisher of The Cairo Times, Daoud Kuttab, Director of AmmanNet in Jordan, Walid Al-Saqqaf, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Yemen Times, and Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, former editor of several Iranian newspapers. Speakers from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan have also been invited to participate.
The press freedom roundtable complements a session in the World Editors Forum on "Arab media: an emerging power." From CNN leadership in 1991 to Al-Jazeera and Al- Arabiya power in 2003, Arab television played a major role during the war in Iraq and its aftermath. But what about Arab newspapers? Do they have a major influence on public opinion?
The session will feature Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Islamology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Ian Ritchie, Associated Press Vice President - Global Business, USA and former CEO at Middle East Broadcasting; Hazem Saghie, Editor, Al-Hayat, London; and Gebran Tueni, Editor, An Nahar, Lebanon (chairman).
The Congress also includes a session of related interest, "From Heroes to Entrepreneurs: Newspaper Development in Emerging Markets." This special two-hour workshop will examine how newspaper companies manage the transition from political and social catalysts to commercial success stories.
Speakers include: Sasa Vucinic, Managing Director, Media Development Loan Fund; Yury Purgin, Director General, Altapress, Russia; Alexej Fulmek, General Director, SME, Slovakia; Zeljko Ivanovic, Director, Vijesti, Serbia and Montenegro; and Jose Ruben Zamora, President and Editor, El Periodico, Guatemala.
The 57th World Newspaper Congress, dedicated to the strategic and economic issues facing newspapers, will feature some of the top executives in the business. Among them: The Chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust in the United Kingdom, Lord Rothermere, the Publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Karen House, and the Chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, Donald Graham.
The 11th World Newspaper Forum focuses exclusively on newsroom issues and features presentations by top news executives from around the world. These include: Juan-Luis Cebrian, CEO of PRISA Group and Spain’s leading daily, El Pais; Dean Wright, the Editor-in-Chief of one of the world’s leading internet news sites, MSNBC.com; and Edwy Plenel, Editor-in-Chief, Le Monde in France.
Full programme information here.
Sponsors of the Congress and the Forum now include the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmens Association, Anadolu Beverage Group, Efes, Coca-Cola, the Union of Chambers of Commerce, E-Kolay, the Dünya newspaper, Reuters and Müller Martini. The main local organiser is the Milliyet newspaper.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 13 news agencies and ten regional and world-wide press groups.
Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr.
