With conferences and seminars taking place worldwide, Ifra is currently the leading international organization for newspapers and media. Recently there was Newsroom 2007, a conference dealing exclusively with the news desk. The lesson from this conference: traditional systems no longer work in news desks – what’s required now are systems integrating web and print for efficiency and synergy purposes.
The speakers of the conference touched upon many different subject areas. Among the speakers was Henrik PÃ¥lsson from Ericsson who spoke about the mobile phone as a new form of media. He ended his talk with a remark about paper-based news not having any place in the future:
Finally, when taking questions, Pålsson observed that of all the teenagers in focus groups in Sweden he knows none for whom paper is an important medium, and he doesn’t see that changing as they reach their 20s. In a reference to the Long Tail theory he noted that paper has its place in the long tail part of the equation (i.e. dealing with niche interests) but doesn’t see its future as being in the head (mass consumption).
Murdoch MacLennan (CEO, Telegraph Media Group) talked about four head-challenges for the future mediaactors: practice, branding, copyright and constitution. When he talked about practice he noticed blogs and podcasts as a key component.
Lamenting the traditional lack of attention paid to training journalists, MacLennan noted that blogs and podcasts are now key ingredients for correspondents following stories both far afield and close to home; hence a familiarity with the new media landscape is essential for editors