APN group executive editor Peter Owen – interviewed in GXpress earlier this year – has joined the line-up for next month’s WAN-Ifra Publish Asia conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Australian regional media group APN's local news content has been enhanced by the establishment of a centralised newsroom for its 14 daily and 50 nondaily newspapers, using a single-database editorial system.

Owen explained that the shift provides economies of scale, much improved products and logistical benefits in the production of some of its more remote editions in GXpress March 2010.

At Publish Asia, he will outline the implementation and the benefits achieved. The case study, which combines business, editorial and technology dimensions, will be presented at the conference’s closing session on  on August 5.

For 15 years, Owen was editor-in-chief of the Sunshine Coast Newspaper Company, which publishes the ‘Sunshine Coast Daily’, ‘Sunshine Coast Sunday’ and a dozen community titles. He is a former editor of the daily newspapers, the ‘Queensland Times’ (Ipswich) and ‘The Star’ (Hong Kong). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Journalism from Queensland's JSchool in 2008, and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Over 40 speakers have confirmed their participation in Publish Asia 2010, including:
Almar Latour, Editor in chief, Asia, The Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong
Matthew Eltringham, Assistant editor of interactivity, BBC, UK
Shaun Morgan, Business Development Manager, Fairfax Media, Australia
Margaret Lim, Executive chairman of AEGIS Group, AEGIS-Carat Media, Malaysia
Azrul Ananda, Chief Operating Officer, Jawa Pos, Indonesia
Roman Gallo, Director for Media Strategies, PPF Media, Czech Republic
Theo Blanco, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Upsala Nya Tidning, Sweden
Premesh Chandran, Co Founder and CEO, Malaysiakini, Malaysia
Geoff Tan, Senior VP, Head - Strategic Marketing & Customer Service, Marketing Division, SPH, Singapore
Tony Joseph, CEO, Mindworks, USA
Emmanuel Sauquet, Google's Asia Pacific Director of Partnerships, Singapore
Chew Kai Kim, VP Materials, Quality Control / Process, SPH, Singapore;
Kasturi Balaji, Director, Kasturi and Sons, India;
Sankarshanan, VP, Shanghai Printing Group Company, China

Four pre conference workshops on iPad for newspapers, cross-media advertising, newsroom integration and cost control in production will take place on August 3. Details from www.publishasia.com