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6th International Newsroom Summit: Ifra offers insights into media-convergent newsroom practice
The Ifra International Newsroom Summit is the established global meeting place of newsroom specialists. Already in its 6th year, it will take place this time on 19 and 20 April 2007 at the Hôtel Ambassador in Paris.
The focus will be on first-hand reports given by newspaper experts from all over the world who have already successfully implemented media-convergent practices in their newsrooms: Murdoch MacLennan, CEO of the Telegraph Media Group in the United Kingdom, and William Lewis, Editor of the Daily Telegraph; Ulrik Haagerup, Chief Editor of Nordjyske Stiftstidende from Denmark and Michael Maness, VP of Strategic Planning at Gannett in the U.S.A., are just a few of the programme highlights.
The Ifra Newsroom Summit uses concrete case studies from cross-media newsrooms to show how to develop a convergence strategy, how integrated print/online newsrooms work in practice, which tools journalists can use, how to change newsroom culture, how to focus on the main needs of the audience and thus successfully operate a newsroom in the digital age.
The IfraNewsplex team, comprising specialists from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Austria and the U.S.A., will also be present to answer all questions.
All presentations at this international conference will be translated simultaneously into English, French and German.
From customers via convergence to cultural change:
The first conference day (Thursday, 19 April 2007) will be opened and chaired by Claude Droussent, Chief Editor of L’Equipe in France. Murdoch MacLennan, CEO of the U.K. Telegraph Media Group, will give the keynote lecture on the subject of "The monumental challenges facing today’s newspaper industry".
The recent move of the Telegraph group into new premises in London was accompanied by a reorganisation of the newsroom based on the cross-media concept - under the project leadership of IfraNewsplex director Dietmar Schantin. "Readers are moving to the online medium and advertisers are following them. (...) We had to act and the move into the new offices provided the impetus", M. MacLennan explained in an interview published in the February 2007 issue of Ifra newspaper techniques.
"Understanding the reader’s needs" is the general heading of the following first set of lectures, which will include Henrik Pålsson from the Swedish telecommunication company, Ericsson, who will speak on the topic of "Audience focus: developing content for mobile services".
The second group of lectures will deal with "Convergent publishing in practice". Case studies will be presented by Skip Foster, Publisher, of the U.S. newspaper Shelby Star, who will look at "Convergence on a hyper-local level", and Bengt Engwall from Norrköpings Tidningar (NT) in Sweden who will explain why "Print, Online, TV - at NT are all equally important!". In his presentation, William Lewis will describe the convergence strategy and project of the Telegraph Media Group and Michael Maness from the U.S.A. will present "The Information Center - the Gannett convergence strategy".
On the evening of the first day conference participants have the opportunity to attend a gala evening at the famous Lido cabaret, including dinner and show.
The second conference day (Friday, 20 April 2007) will start with a series of presentations under the general heading of "Advertising strategies for editors". First off here will be the presentation by Pieter Kok, publisher of De Volkskrant in Amsterdam, about "Convincing advertisers of the convergence concept".
The final topic to be covered will be "Change Management - changing the newsroom culture". This will include the following lectures: "Training strategies for the challenges of the 21st. century" by Jonathan Halls, former head of the multimedia division of BBC Training in London; "Change management for newsroom reorganisation" by Ifra Associate Consultant Sarah Schantin-Williams, and "Do a re-think! Culture change at Nordjyske Medier" by Ulrik Haagerup from Denmark.
Information and registration:
To obtain more information about the 6th Ifra International Newsroom Summit and programme updates, as well as to register for the conference, visit website.
More Ifra events on the subject of media convergence:
- "Digital Trend Day" (in conjunction with INMA): 8 May 2007 in Amsterdam (language: English);
- "Zeitung online 2007" (in cooperation with BDZV): 12 and 13 June 2007 in Potsdam, Germany (language: German);
- "Pre-IfraExpo Study Tour: Multimedia Newsrooms
in Europe": 30 September to 6 October 2007 in Denmark, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Switzerland (language: English). 06.03.2007, Ifra
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