Newspaper & Mailroom
The Tablet Year: Why Mobile Distribution Will Change News Reporting
Wednesday 24. March 2010 - The emergence of the iPad, tablets and e-readers as viable news platforms holds great promise for future news delivery - but how do news companies get the most out of them? The World Editors Forum is dedicating its annual conference, and a series of online seminars, to answering the question.
The annual Editors Forum, to be held alongside the World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo in Beirut, Lebanon, from 7 to 10 June next, will take the theme “The Tablet Year: Why Mobile Distribution Will Change News Reporting.”
Among those who will address the tablet challenge will be:
Marcus Brauchli, Executive Editor, Washington Post, USA;
Bart Brouwers, Managing Editor for Hyperlocal Online Media, Telegraaf Media Group, The Netherlands;
Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager, Google News, Google, USA;
Alfredo Triviño, Director of Creative Projects, News International, UK;
Wataru Sawamura, Foreign Editor, Asahi Shimbun, Japan.
“The World Editors Forum always tries to anticipate the most vibrant debates that count for editors-in-chief,” said Bertrand Pecquerie, Executive Director of the Editors Forum.
“We believe we are entering a new information ecosystem and will have to focus on new key elements,” he said. “These include the new reading devices and how they impact news reporting. We will also focus on the growing importance of linking and sharing among a variety of news sources, and on the need for more cooperation between news organisations that once saw themselves as purely competitors.”
1,500 Editors-in-chief, publishers, managing directors and other senior newspaper executives are expected to attend the 17th World Editors Forum, 63rd World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo 2010. It is the first time the events are being held in the Arab world: full details are available at www.wanlebanon2010.com.
The Editors Forum will be preceded in coming weeks by a series of online seminars, or webinars, on the iPad and tablets and how newspapers can make the most from these platforms. The three, one-hour webinars will feature Juan Señor of the Innovation International Media Consulting Group, Jeff Litvack, General Manager for Mobile and Emerging Products at The Associated Press, and Mr Triviño. Mr Señor will also be speaking in Beirut. Full webinar details can be found at www.editorsweblog.org/webinars.html.
Highlights of the World Editors Forum in Beirut include:
“The new content platforms: a breakthrough year?,” a session devoted to the new surge in electronic readers for books, notably tablets, and the multiplication of mobile devices with easy and comfortable access to news sites. These devices have given a new lease of life to the idea that wireless platforms may yet take a central role in news publishing. This joint session with the World Newspaper Congress examines newspaper experiments in publishing on such devices and takes a whirlwind tour of whats currently on the market. Speakers include Mr Triviño, Jeff Reifman, Founder of NewsCloud and a Knight News Challenge winner in the USA, and other speakers to be announced.
“How to break away from he said yesterday journalism,” which will focus on new ways to present the news when editors assume that readers already know the story. Speakers include Mr Brauchli, the Editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, Abdel-Moniem Said, Chairman of the Board of the Al-Ahram group in Egypt, and Loïc Le Meur, the CEO of Seesmic, which aggregates content from social networking sites.
“Our news and Google News: how can we cooperate?,” a workshop that will bring together newspapers and Google to examine how they might cooperate to mutual advantage. Google made some constructive proposals to newspaper companies last year, and the relationship has evolved, with indications that Google is more willing to engage in dialogue. The workshop will feature Mr Cohen, and other participants to be announced.
“New ways to finance quality journalism: the other face of content monetization,” which will feature some of investigative and quality journalism projects that are financed by new business models, including those funded by foundations and paid directly by the public. Speakers include Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of ProPublica in the USA, John Yemma, Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Science Monitor, Olav Bergo, Editorial advisor for A-pressen in Norway, and David Cohn, Founder of Spot.us, and a Knight News Challenge winner.
Plus much more. Details of the evolving programmes can be found here.
The events will, as always, be accompanied by a rich social programme, tours, meetings with local and international political, business and cultural leaders, and more. Among the highlights: an opening cocktail at the Couvent St Jean, a convent on a hillside above the city; a Lebanese folklore evening on the Mediterranean in Byblos, said to be the oldest inhabited city in the world; and a gala closing dinner at the Beiteddine Palace, the former seat of the Lebanese Emirs.