“We have to be confident about the strong future of news,” asserted CBC director of news content David Walmsely during a special industry panel discussion on May 3.

Walmsely, who left his post as managing editor of The Globe and Mail in 2012, was one of four panelists discussing the Future of News during a special opening presentation on the second day of the INK+BEYOND newspaper conference in Ottawa.

Walmsely was joined by three additional news media industry representatives: Global News’ David Skok, Metroland East’s Mike Mount and Kim Fox from Newsana who moderated the discussion.

John Cruickshank, the publisher of the Toronto Star, was thrilled to hear that the newspaper’s website was getting a ton of hits, especially those generated by unique users. He was a lot less thrilled to hear that he wasn’t making any more money from them. “I was thinking about my plan B – buying a hardware store in Haliburton,” he laughed. 

Cruickshank, Wayne Parrish, COO of Postmedia Network, and moderator Michael Lamb, a partner with the New York City based management consultants McKinsey and Company, discussed some of their experiences with paywalls during a special panel discussion at the INK+BEYOND newspaper conference in Ottawa on May 2.

This was a big week for Rainer Esser.

His newspaper, Die Zeit, had a major scoop and then the German weekly was profiled alongside its biggest competitor – and came out on top.

“It’s still a bit more than just publishing a newspaper - it’s an idea, a vision.” 

Die Zeit formed after World War II by well-to-do people with almost no journalism experience. The goal was to foster the development of media in the newly emerging German democracy - and Die Zeit was one of the publications in progress.

“They treated their readers with a lot of respect – not just to make money -- and this passion of the old days still exists in our publishing house,” said Esser.

At Newspapers Canada’s annual INK+BEYOND conference in Ottawa Esser spoke to delegates about the elements key to Die Zeit’s success.

Bernard Asselin, president of Bleublancrouge, shared his back to basics marketing strategies with a room full of attentive newspaper delegates on May 2 during the INK+BEYOND newspaper conference in Ottawa. The multi-media driven presentation kept those in attendance engaged, with Asselin stopping periodically to ask questions and keep the audience thinking throughout the session.

The focus of Asselin’s address was on innovation culture and how innovation is really a process--the sum of all the tiny discoveries made--qualitative in its research and the opposite of logical.

The mood for the 2013 Great Idea Awards luncheon was established immediately by the ceremony’s emcee Candy Hodson, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing at Black Press.

“Even though this is a luncheon, I really feel this should be special so can we lower the lights?” Using two flashlights, she created makeshift searchlights in front of the crowd. “Is everybody feeling it?”

The annual luncheon event was held on May 2 in Ottawa during Newspapers Canada’s INK+BEYOND conference and trade show.

From coast to coast, newspapers are testing out new models for engaging with their surrounding communities. A group of newspaper representatives discussed how they are making a difference in their local communities and engaging with readers, both online and in person, during a panel discussion at the recent INK+BEYOND newspaper conference in Ottawa.

“If you’re not optimized for mobile you’re missing the boat.”

Instead of being stranded on shore clinging to your print platform as a life raft, newspapers need to jump on board the ever-growing online and mobile vessels where ad revenue and audience diversity promise to keep a paper afloat.

At least that’s what Kirk Allen believes.

The Reshift Media co-founder and former Postmedia executive spoke to a room of attentive delegates on May 2 at the INK+BEYOND newspaper conference, where he discussed the necessity of multi-platform advertising strategies as both a tool to grow sales, and to engage new audiences.

The day the tablet was introduced to the world is a day that is still fresh in the mind of Andree Gosselin O’Meara of The Globe and Mail.

O’Meara, the director of audience development and mobile digital, presented tablet audience data and reading trends to newspaper delegates at the annual INK+BEYOND conference in Ottawa on May 2, 2013.

As many media outlets rethink their business strategies, there is one company that is eager to work with them: Google. “Google is interested in doing business with you,” as Rory Capern, the Strategic Partnership Lead for Google, told delegates during Canada’s annual INK+BEYOND newspaper conference.

The company now offers a myriad of digital products that can help put newspapers on the cutting edge in the online space: DoubleClick, an advertising technology service that allows Google to create targeted ads based on users’ interests; Google Trends, a graph application that can help organizations track when articles become popular; and customizable Google Search for newspapers to use on their own websites to assist readers in site navigation.

“Good journalism is good business” was the slogan for INK+BEYOND 2013 opening speaker Juan Señor, partner at Innovation Media Consulting Group in London, England and a contributing author to the Innovations in Newspapers 2012 World Report.

Señor spoke to conference delegates about newspaper transformation in a digital age during his keynote address on Thursday, May 2. He stressed the need to dismantle the current American newspaper editorial model, trading in commodity and abundant journalism for “scarce” quality journalism.

According to Señor, there is no revenue in abundant content and the future success for any news outlet relies on the practice of being digital first, but not digital only.