World's publishers gather in Moscow, but it's the editors who are leading

Posted by Ben Compaine

I’m in Moscow, where I will be attending some of the sessions of the World Press Association Newspaper (WAN) Congress and the associatedWorld Editors Forum. One early observation from what the organizers have put on the program is ongoing concern about the online world for the editors, but business as usual for their publishers. 

On the Editor’s Forum is a keynote address by Columbia Business School’s Eli Noam, whose theme starts with the warning “Today's newspaper will become a news-integrator, but the problem for traditional news organisations is that this type of virtual integrator function can also be done by others.”  Other speakers here (remember, this is are newspaper publisher and editor conferences) are Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Corante Media Hub colleague Steve Yelvington, Yahoo! News’, Neil Budde and  Google News’ Nathan Stoll. Mochila.com and Microsoft have their presence here as well. 

Unfortunately, the sessions for the publishers are far more mundane, despite promising titles. A session with the promising description of the “latest research and strategy reports in the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project” is about classified advertising. A session headlined “The Product Innovators” will feature “The Future of newspapers - newspapers of the future” with that digital innovator Axel Springer of Germany and a “Review of the Russian media scene.” from TNS Gallup Media. Of interest, perhaps, but hardly the stuff of shoring up a sinking ship.

In all fairness, WAN has always been heavily European with a strong South American and Asian presence (China has a impressive delegation of 41 registered participants, compared to the 70 or so from the U.S.) In many regions newspaper circulation is still growing, thanks to improvements in literacy that expands the universe of readers and the lower penetration of cable, DBS and the Internet than in the West. That said, the publishers might be serving their future better by attending the Editor’s Forum.

While the New York Times Co. and the Washington Post have some reasonably high level people attending, is there any message in who is missing: no one from McClatchy, Gannett or Tribune Co. (other than a mid level European manager from the Tribune News Service).

If  any worthwhile insights stumble out of these conferences, I’ll be sure to share them.