The Congress weblog at www.wan-press.org/seoul2005/weblogs.php will provide summaries of presentations from leaders of some of the world’s biggest and best newspapers, including Arthur O. Sulzberger, Chairman of the New York Times Company, Shinichi Hakoshima, President of The Asahi Shimbun, Bengt Braun, President & CEO of Bonnier in Sweden, Michael Grabner, Deputy Chairman of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck in Germany, Carlos Oliva-Vélez, Executive Vice-President of Metro International, Fred Hilmer, Chief Executive Officer of John Fairfax Holdings in Australia, and many others.

The Forum BlogConf at www.editorsweblog.org is even more ambitious. The weblog will provide live reports of the latest ideas and analyses from the World Editors Forum as well as discussions between 300 editors from around the world, some of the most well-known new media pundits and the international community of bloggers.

"The time has come to start a real dialogue between editors and the blogging community," said Bertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors Forum, the organisation within WAN for senior newsroom executives. "Bloggers regularly criticise the mainstream media, their accuracy and their bias. But both parties agree that the democratic process has to be improved and that new digital technologies make this process easier."

The Editors Forum BlogConf will provide a dialogue between bloggers and the speakers at the conference, who include Dan Gillmor, a columnist and leading "citizen journalism" advocate, Krishna Bharat, the creator of Google News, Rich Skrenta, CEO and founder of Topix.net, Simon Waldman, Director of Digital Publishing for The Guardian, Barry Sussman, Director of the Nieman Watchdog Project, Joi Ito, Technorati and Six Apart, Andrew Nachison, Director of The Media Center, and many others.

In addition to the Congress and Forum weblogs, coverage of the events will also be provided by the international publishing association Ifra through its "moblog", or mobile weblog. Pictures, video, audio and text summaries will be provided through advance mobile imaging phones at wancongress.ifra-nt.com.

More than 1,100 newspaper publishers, managing directors, chief editors and other senior newspaper executives from 80 countries are registered for the 58th World Newspaper Congress, 12th World Editors Forum, and Info Services Expo 2005, the annual global meetings of the world’s press and the largest international newspaper event ever held in Asia.

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, 11 news agencies and nine 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.