Leadership for newspapers: What skills do publishers need?PARIS, FRANCE / DARMSTADT, GERMANY: The job description of newspaper publishers is changing rapidly, as newspapers have gone from ink-on-paper to multimedia publications. Traditional leadership and management styles often don't keep pace. How to find and nurture newspaper leaders and provide them with the skills they need are among the most pressing challenges facing the industry, and the subject of a major session at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held from 12 to 15 October in Vienna, Austria. "News industry leaders have to understand not only that the story is more important than the distribution channel, but also that they have to lead an even more important paradigm shift," says Ulrik Haagerup, a Congress speaker who heads the news division at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and has become a renown global expert on cross-media publishing leadership. Too much bad news is... bad news"News in the future needs to be more than bad stories angled only on conflicts, drama, crooks and people to feel sorry for ... news in the future needs to be about solutions and inspiration to the problems facing our customers, and the societies journalism are meant to cover," he says. Haagerup, a member of World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Journalism, will be joined in the session on leadership by Tom Cummings, co-author of "Leadership Landscapes" and a founder of the Executive Learning Partnership in the United States, Johnny Hustler, managing director of Archant Regional in the United Kingdom, and more speakers to be announced. More than 1200 publishers, CEOs, managing directors, chief editors and other senior newspaper executives are expected in Vienna for the Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo, the global annual summit meetings of the world's press organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). Full details, including the programme and registration information, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/6x223jy. Other Congress highlights include:
The events, hosted by the Austrian Newspaper Association (VÖZ), will be accompanied by a rich social programme, tours, meetings with local and international political, business and cultural leaders, and more. The Congress and Editors Forum is being held this year in conjunction with IFRA Expo, the largest global trade exhibition for the news publishing and media industry. The Expo will proceed the Congress and Forum, giving newspaper professionals the opportunity to benefit from a mega 'Newspaper Week' event. Full details on all the events can be found at http://www.worldnewspaperweek.org. |