The World Association of Newspapers provides a full conference reporting service to its members and to subscribers to its Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project. The following summaries are shorter versions of the full conference reports.

For a sample of the full report, click here.

The end of adolescence for the internet

Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center, American Press Institute

To charge or not to charge? That was the question in the opening session Wednesday of the World Editors Forum, which provided presentations of a variety of strategies for publishers seeking revenue from their web operations.

"I think in a lot of markets today, charging for content is a short-term solution from bad past practices," said Mr Nachison, the chairman for the session.

Advertising revenues are set to grow, he said. "With fragmented media, the value of on-line advertising is beginning to emerge."

"On-line advertising works," he said, "and this message has not trickled up or down through the newspaper industry, or the advertising industry, and it needs to," he added.

Preparing customers for pay service

Alan Abbey, Vice President of Electronic Publishing, The Jerusalem Post

Users of JP.com are far from Israel geographically, but not in mind.

Ninety percent of them live outside of Israel, with 75 percent in the United States and Canada, and they have a profound interest in the Jewish state and the Jewish religion.

With 300,000 registered users and 20 million monthly page views, such a loyal audience has already made the web site profitable. But the company is committed to one day charging a subscription fee for access.

"The free era is ending," says Mr Abbey. "Three years ago we made the strategic decision that we would go to a pay site eventually. Survival depends on getting overseas readers to pay."

JP.com is therefore, little by little, preparing the way for eventual subscription service. It has improved technology, content and design. It has already begun selling some services, such as e-mail and SMS alerts, a Palm service, audio reports. "I think with that we’ve created a market for paid products," he said.

But more importantly, said Mr Abbey, is how the newspaper perceives itself and the focus of its content -- "a deeply focused niche site, albeit a fairly large niche" -- offering information of interest to Israelis and Jews around the world, "all presented from JP.com’s perspective. Nobody can cover Israel like we can."

Still, will users pay? There are risks they will switch to free sources of news about Israel. There are other risks as well: a loss of audience and market share and a subsequent loss of advertising, and a reduction in the ability to promote other JP.com products.

One year later: The FT experience

Tracy Corrigan, Editor FT.com, United Kingdom

It has been one year since the Financial Times introduced paid subscriptions on its web site, but there is still plenty of free material available -- only 30 percent of the content is "behind the veil" of the paid service, said Ms Corrigan.

"News is free, commentary and analyses falls behind a subscription veil. And we have editorial control over that decision," she said. "We have enough material free to attract sufficient traffic. But we also have enough behind the veil to attract subscribers."

55,000 subscribers agree.

"It is obviously a difficult business, to charge for content on the internet," she said. "News is widely available on the internet free of charge. The FT model works for us, I believe, because we have a blend of general content and specialist content and tools that people are willing to pay for."

Just who do they think they are?

Donn Friedman, Assistant Managing Editor, ABQjournal.com, Albuquerque Journal, USA

The New York Times doesn’t charge for access to its web site, nor does the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Republic or the Denver Post.

But the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico does. Just who do they think they are?

"To understand our model, you must understand a little about us," said Mr Friedman.

The Albuquerque Journal is the largest media organisation in New Mexico, with more than 150 journalists. The Sante Fe New Mexican has less than 50, and the three statewide TV stations have even smaller news staffs.

"With reporters and photographers scattering out of our newsroom across the state, we’ve got exclusives on most every story coming out of this inordinately important news state."

So there it is: they can charge because they have newsworthiness, and often exclusivity.

Mr Friedman spent much of his presentation offering up letters from readers, often angry and insulting, focusing on their opposition to paying for online news.

But the newspaper is strong in its position. "It’s time to declare the free content model has failed," said Mr Friedman. "Quality content is too expensive to produce and too valuable to its readers to give it away? In fact, the act of giving it away devalues it even more."

Message to editors: get involved in advertising

Leonard Apcar, Editor, nytimes.com, USA

As the editor in charge of content on the web site of the New York Times, the biggest newspaper web site in the world, Mr Apcar spends a lot of time working on advertising.

"When advertising creativity is weak, we all suffer, and readers turn away from our journalism," said Mr Apcar. "As editors, we ignore this at our peril, particularly in this new medium."

Mr Apcar has objected to certain proposed advertisements and has convinced his business colleagues they were not in the site’s best interest. "I win some of these battles, and lose some," he said.

Every editor should take part in discussions on ad acceptability, he said.

"It is up to us to push the creative because ultimately we are responsible for the environment," he said.

The change to charge: a lesson in survival

Deirdre Veldon, Editor, Ireland.com

Ireland.com, the web site of the Irish Times, is popular far beyond the island nation, thanks to the large diaspora of Irish around the world that has made it one of the most recognised and admired news web sites in the world.

The site had 25 million monthly page impressions, 2.5 million unique users, and huge brand recognition. "However, it generated low levels of revenue relative to the cost base," said Ms Veldon. "It was clear we could not depend on advertising for all our revenues.

2001 proved to be a turning point for the web site.

"We realised we’d have to change our approach to revenue generation to survive," said Ms Veldon, and thus a "return on investment phase" was launched.

When the decision to charge was made, Ireland.com needed to answer three questions: What will customers pay for? How can we satisfy the need to give customers something ’tangible’? How much will they pay?

To answer these questions, a research strategy was launched that involved focus groups in Ireland and in the United States, a user survey, and consultations with other newspapers in similar publications and web sites.

The subscription was introduced in June 2002 -- a simplified package of clear costs for most of the daily paper, archives, sport, business and technology.

But the front page is still free, as are property, jobs and motors.

Ms Veldon said subscriptions are steadily growing and already creating a revenue streams.

Lessons from the Kids

François DuFour, Editor in chief, Play Bac Presse, France

Play Bac Presse publishes four age-specific dailies for children in France, growing from a combined 27,000 daily circulation in 1995 to 58,000 today. Here are some lessons for newspapers from the kids:

  Kids like news but not adult news. They like subjects like the environment, sports and entertainment. They’re not worried about the paper being late a day or two.

  Kids like news in their age group centres of interest -- 5-to-7 year olds; 8-to-10 years old; 11-to-13 years old; and 14-to-16 years old.

  Kids like small formats, all colour, and no dirty-ink newspapers.

  In order of preference, kids like cartoons, photos, headlines, briefs with long articles last.

Mr DuFour’s presentation provided other insights into what children like in a newspaper as well.

Newspaper war in Chicago - for young readers

Michael Smith, Managing Director, Media Management Centre, USA

There is a newspaper war raging in Chicago, and the target are readers who don’t generally look at newspapers.

They are the valuable 18-to-34-year olds, and the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have launched similar newspapers aimed at them -- the Tribune’s "Red Eye" and the Sun-Times’ "Red Stream."

The origin of the Red Eye, and of this war itself, lies in a web site. The Tribune noticed that its Metromix entertainment site was attracting 600,000 young unique readers who did not read the Chicago Tribune.

This discovery raised a question: how could the Tribune create a newspaper that would attract them so they would potentially migrate to the main newspaper when they got older?

"If you are going after young readers today, you have to reach them before they reach 18," said Mr Smith. "The level of readership at 18 remains the same at 28, or 38, or 48 or 58. It’s set for life."

The project objectives included reaching young adults, increasing market share among 18- to 34-year-olds, and most importantly, influence migration to other Chicago Tribune projects, especially the Sunday newspaper.

Six months after launch, it is difficult to say whether they are successful, but there are promising signs. Among them: Sunday Tribune circulation appears to be picking up readers of Red Eye.