Wan-Ifra meet on 17-18 Sept on future of news publishing

Three parallel tracks, entitled Newsroom Summit, Printing Summit and Cross-media Advertising Summit, will be the highlights of the Wan-Ifra India 2014 conference, to be held in New Delhi on 17 and 18 September. Organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (Wan-Ifra) and co-sponsored by the Indian Newspaper Society, the central organisation of the Press of India, this is the 22nd annual conference of Wan-Ifra in South Asia.

19 Jul 2014 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma

The conference, which boasts an impressive list of speakers both from India and abroad, will discuss the business and technology challenges and provide a direction into the future of the news publishing industry in the region.

The conference assumes significance against the backdrop of the digital media revolution facing the South Asian news publishing industry on the one hand and the challenge of managing the growth of print media business on the other hand. According to the organisers, now, the challenge for news publishers is to build on the strength of these two mediums and grow their audience and business. Changes in reader habits, business models and the quicker arrival of newer technologies are to be utilised for the core mission – to be relevant to the readers.

In this context, Wan-Ifra India 2014 promises to highlight the best case studies from newsrooms, news businesses and news production departments from around. Apart from the summits on newsroom, printing and cross-media advertising, the event will also feature three pre-conference workshops on data journalism, new media metrics and densitometry.

There will also be foyer info-tables where delegates will have an opportunity to meet the world’s leading vendors of services and equipment to the news publishing industry.

The speakers include top industry leaders like, Alexandra Salomon, senior director, International Interactive Advertising Bureau, US; Andrew Holden, editor-in-chief, The Age, Australia; Dipankar Das Purkayastha, CEO, ABP; Kasturi Balaji, director, Kasturi & Sons; R Sukumar, editor, Hindustan Times – Mint; Rahul Kansal, executive president, Bennett Coleman & Co;  T N Ninan, chairman, Business Standard; Thomas Smolders, strategist, Blendle, The Netherlands and Vincent Peyregne, chief executive officer, Wan-Ifra, France, among others.