AP chief to keynote World Editors Forum

The Associated Press, which serves thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television and online customers, was one of the first agencies to deal with the phenomenon. Curley will address the issue in a session with a panel of editors and publishers including Didier Pillet, publisher of La Provence in France, and other speakers to be announced.

The World Editors Forum, the World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo, to be held from 7 to 10 June in Beirut, Lebanon, are the global summit meetings of the world's press. More than 1,500 publishers, chief editors, CEOs, managing directors and other senior newspaper executives are expected in Beirut.

Other World Editors Forum sessions include:

• "New ways to finance quality journalism: the other face of content monetisation," which will examine some of the new business models that are emerging: journalism funded by foundations, or paid directly by the public. Speakers include Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief and founder of ProPublica, and John Yemma, editor-in-chief of the Christian Science Monitor.

• "Multimedia newsrooms versus pure online players: which model is the most sustainable?" which will offer a comparison between the two ways to organise newsrooms to help editors review and re-engineer their own newspapers. Speakers include Raju Narisetti, the managing editor of The Washington Post, and Wataru Sawamura, foreign editor of the Asahi Shimbun.

• "How to break away from 'he said yesterday' journalism," which will focus on new ways to present the news when editors assume that readers already know the story. Speakers include Marcus Brauchli, the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, and Loïc Le Meur the CEO of Seesmic, which aggregates content from social networking sites.

• "The new content platforms: a breakthrough year?" a session devoted to the new surge in electronic readers for books, notably 'tablets', and the multiplication of mobile devices with easy and comfortable access to news sites. These devices have given a new lease of life to the idea that wireless platforms may yet take a central role in news publishing. This joint session with the World Newspaper Congress examines newspaper experiments in publishing on such devices and takes a whirlwind tour of what's currently on the market.

• "Is journalism going green?" which will look at the new focus on environmental issues, global warming and sustainable development. Readers want more stories on these themes, which are appearing in all newspaper
  sections: economy, politics, even sports and leisure. This trend suggests a need to develop new skills and new ways to tell stories.

• "What's wrong with media training?" which will examine the impact of more than a decade of training journalists for new media and new storytelling styles. Has the money been well spent? Are the training sessions still valid after six or nine months? Are journalists actually thinking differently after hours and hours of training?

• "Using crowd-sourcing in hyperlocal news," which will examine new forms of journalism emerging from interaction with readers. Editors-in-chief who have jumped into the hyperlocal news world will share their experiences with crowd sourcing and other methods, including Bart Brouwers, project editor for hyperlocal news at the Telegraaf Media Group in The Netherlands.

• "Our news and Google News: how can we cooperate?" which will examine how newspapers and Google might cooperate to mutual advantage. Google made some constructive proposals to newspaper companies last year, and the relationship has evolved, with indications that Google is more willing to engage in dialogue.

For more info, go to www.lebanon2010.com.