8th WAN-IFRA ME Conference Brings Together Media Professionals From Around the World

The WAN-IFRA Conference held in Dubai discovered burning issues and stood distinct through the participation of high profile attendees. The conference was inaugurated by Deputy Ruler of Dubai Shaikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and the opening address was delivered by WAN-IFRA president Jacob Mathew.

Mario Garcia, who has re-launched and redesigned more than 600 publications across the globe, said that paper of the future would be a very robust weekend paper. “Monday through Friday, people want to get their news fast. But in the Middle East where weekends were chiefly reserved for prayer or family time, it was “a difficult market to do this. People in this region tended to leave work a bit earlier, and would be up-to-date through digital means during the day, turning to newspapers in the afternoon”, Garcia said.

He added, “The papers that would die would be the ones that refuse to accept “the new role of print”, which is to specialise in long-form journalism, analysis and feature articles, and contain a mixture of silly and serious stories. Print needed to stand out in the “media quartet” of newspapers, websites, tablets and mobile phones.”

Garcia also said the biggest media platform for growth would be mobile phones.”We don’t like to read a lot on a phone, but 12- and 13-year-olds…they will read on these phones, they will listen to music on these phones, and they will watch a video.”