Vincent Peyrègne, chief executive officer, WAN-IFRA
WAN-IFRA has joined Stars4Media.eu, an exchange program for young media professionals to boost media innovation and cross-border cooperation in Europe. A media-driven pilot project co-funded by the European Union, Stars4Media will support 100 promising young news media professionals working together around collaborative, innovative project-based initiatives.
Stars4Media.eu will be led by a consortium formed by VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Fondation Euractiv, the European Federation Journalists, and WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers. Participants in the program will be young media professionals with 2-10 years of media experience.
The objective of Stars4Media is to enhance media innovation and cross-border cooperation in the European media industry by implementing a sustainable framework for innovation. A European leadership training program for 100 young media professionals, Stars4Media will develop project-based sustainable Initiatives between European media outlets.
The project calls on the participation of professionals coming from different areas of expertise (journalists, graphic designers, social media managers, technology and product developers, marketing experts).
“We are addressing two of the key challenges that still hinder the processes of press transformation in the digital age: project-based product management and culture. With its unique European-wide twinning program, Stars4media will help participating companies to truly rethink their relationship to innovation and embed experience innovation into our culture and organization.” Vincent Peyrègne, CEO WAN-IFRA
The call for expression of interest and initiatives will be launched in the upcoming days on www.stars4media.eu. After a pre-selection phase, the match-making event (“Europe’s media lab” planned from 3 to 6 March 2020 in Brussels) will help perfect the initiative proposed and, when necessary, pair professionals from like-minded media outlets around innovation initiatives. Selected teams will benefit from ad-hoc training and will then implement joint concrete cooperation. This core on-the-ground exchange will involve both geographic mobility and virtual teamwork.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
