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Industry leaders prepare for local press summit

A wide-ranging summit on the future of the regional press is to be held tomorrow with local newspaper boss Sir Ray Tindle as the keynote speaker.

The event, Local Heroes, is being staged to coincide with Local Newspaper Week and is desigmned to highlight success stories in local media.

Sir Ray will be speaking about his bold strategy of launching his way out of recession by starting up 15 new titles since the downturn began.

“We totally believe in the future of printed local newspapers – we believe in it 100 per cent,” he said.

Other regional press figures taking part include Tyrone Times editor David Rankin on how he boosted paid-for circulation at his title by 6.4pc year on year, and Cleethorpes Chronicle editor Nigel Lowther on the successful launch of his independent weekly title.

Betty Drummond, managing director of Champion Media, will speak on how her company has defied the downturn to launch a string of new free newspapers in Merseyside.

And Darren Thwaites, editor of the Evening Gazette in Teesside, will focus on his paper’s use of ultra local websites and local bloggers to generate content which is then ‘reverse published’ in print.

Former Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson will debate online paywalls with Nick Turner – head of digital content development for CN Group, and Anita Syvret, former editor in chief of the Gloucestershire Echo.

The conference is being organised by Press Gazette and hosted by Kingston University.

Comments

Chris Youett, Esq, (13/05/2010 16:50:09)
It is a good job that this story isn’t being used in training departments. What ever happened to Who-What-Where-When? Where is the conference being held and what times is it open? After all, I might want to go to it.

F.Johnston (14/05/2010 08:08:59)
Maybe they left all those details out in case you DO want to go, Chris!