Newspaper & Mailroom
Les Hinton of News Corporation Joins World Newspaper Congress
Friday 30. October 2009 - A top executive of Rupert Murdochs News Corporation, which plans to begin charging readers of online versions of its newspapers in the coming months, has joined the programme for the upcoming World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Hyderabad, India, from 1 to 3 December next.
Les Hinton, Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Co., the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, will speak in a Congress session about the companys multi-media strategies, including plans to shift away from free content on the internet.
The Journal, already one of the most successful newspapers in generating revenue from paid web content, recently announced it will soon charge for mobile delivery, and will launch a new subscription-based premium news site, Wall Street Journal Professional.
It is part of News Corporations plans, announced by Mr Murdoch in August, to create a new paid-for business model for digital news delivery. The company believes significant revenues can be generated from the sale of digital delivery of newspapers. “I believe if we are successful we will be followed by other media,” Mr Murdoch has said.
Mr Hinton is among a slate of top-rank industry speakers who will examine new business and editorial strategies at the 62nd World Newspaper Congress, 16th World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo, the global meetings of the worlds press. More than 1,500 publishers, chief editors, managing directors, CEOs are other senior newspaper executives are expected to attend.
Full details can be found at www.wanindia2009.com.
There is still time to register! Special measures have been taken by Indian authorities to facilitate the processing of visas for Congress and Forum participants and Hyderabad is linked by direct flights to major cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Mr Hinton has spent his entire career at News Corp. Before joining Dow Jones, he had been Executive Chairman of News International, News Corporations UK newspaper group, where he oversaw Britains largest publisher of national newspapers including The Times, the Sunday Times, The Sun, The News of the World, and the Times Literary Supplement.
Prior to News International, he worked in the United States for 20 years, first as a correspondent for the companys newspapers in Britain and Australia and later in senior management positions in News Corp.s publishing and television divisions. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of News America Publishing, responsible for U.S. publishing operations, and Chairman and CEO of Fox Television Stations.
The company has been at the forefront of recent efforts, brought about by the current economic crisis, to accelerate revenue production from digital news platforms, and to challenge Google and other news aggregators that have built their businesses on the content created by others, without giving adequate compensation in return.
Other Congress and Forum speakers include:
Andreas Wiele, Member of the Board /President BILD Division and Magazines, Axel Springer AG, Germany;
Olivier Fleurot, CEO, Public Relations, Corporate and Financial Communications, Events Management for Publicis Groupe;
John Paton, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, impreMedia LLC, USA;
Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Chairman/Managing Director and Managing Editor, Jagran Prakashan Ltd, India;
Ravi Dhariwal, CEO Publishing, Bennett, Coleman & Co. (Times Group), India;
Martim Figueiredo, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, i daily newspaper, Portugal;
Gerd Finkbeiner, Chairman of the Executive Board, manroland AG, Germany;
Jaideep Bose, Editor-in-chief, Times of India;
James Orr, Online News Editor, The Christian Science Monitor, USA;
Paul Johnson, Deputy Editor-in-chief, The Guardian, UK;
Steve Engelberg, Managing Editor, Propublica.org, USA;
Harinder Baweja, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Tehelka, India;
Martin Moore, Project Manager, Transparent Journalism (Knight News Challenge winner in 2008), UK;
And many more!
The conferences will be opened by Pratibha Patil the President of India. Full details at www.wanindia2009.com.
Added value: “The Future of Cost Cutting and Business Efficiencies,” an outsourcing study tour, will be conducted following at Congress and Forum. For full details of the 4 to 7 December tour, which will take participants to Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore, can be found at www.wan-press.org/indiatour2009.